Using Knowledge Management to Drive

Innovation
by American Productivity & ISBN:1928593798
Quality Center

APQC © 2003 (194 pages)

This Best-Practice Report explores how innovative

organizations manage their knowledge and how to
approach knowledge management (KM) to drive
innovation.

Table of Contents
Using Knowledge Management to Drive Innovation

Executive Summary

Part 1 - Key Findings

Chapter 1 - Knowledge-enabled Learning and Innovation
The Structural and Cultural Context for
Chapter 2 -
Knowledge and Innovation
Chapter 3 - Identifying the Need
Chapter 4 - Forming the Team
Chapter 5 - Enabling Project and Work Processes
Chapter 6 - Organizational Learning
Outcomes and Benefits of Using Knowledge to
Chapter 7 -
Drive Innovation
Chapter 8 - Knowledge Management Infrastructure
Part 2 - Partner Organization
3M

The Boeing Company, Rocketdyne Division

NASA and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Millennium Pharmaceuticals

The World Bank

Index

List of Figures
Back Cover

This report, APQC's tenth Best-Practice Report on

knowledge management, explores how innovative
organizations manage their knowledge and how to approach
KM to drive innovation. Using Knowledge Management to
Drive Innovation chronicles the value innovative
organizations find in better managing the flow and reuse of
knowledge, effective practices to enhance knowledge
creation and reuse for innovation, and implications for other
organizations that might wish to better nurture knowledge.
The report focuses on how to:

1. foster a supportive culture and link KM, innovation,

and business strategy and results;

2. enable collaboration;

3. establish support roles and structures;

4. engage the educational and training functions and

incorporate recruiting strategies; and

5. measure the success of consciously enabling

knowledge to drive innovation.
Using Knowledge Management to Drive
Innovation
Consortium Learning Forum Best-Practice Report Project
Personnel

Study Personnel
Lou Cataline, project lead
Darcy Lemons American Productivity & Quality Center

Subject Matter Expert

Kimberly Lopez
American Productivity & Quality Center

Special Advisers
Carla O’Dell
American Productivity & Quality Center
Dorothy Leonard
Harvard Business School

Editor
Paige Leavitt

Designer
Fred Bobovnyk Jr

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www.apqc.org.

COPYRIGHT
©2003 American Productivity & Quality Center, 123 North Post Oak
Lane, Third Floor, Houston, Texas 77024-7797. This report cannot
be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic
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ISBN 1-928593-79-8

STATEMENT OF PURPOSE

The purpose of publishing this report is to provide a reference point

for and insight into the processes and practices associated with
certain issues. It should be used as an educational learning tool and
is not a “recipe” or step-by-step procedure to be copied or duplicated
in any way. This report may not represent current organizational
processes, policies, or practices because changes may have
occurred since the completion of the study.

Copyright

©2003 American Productivity & Quality Center. All rights reserved.

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Contents of Study Report

4 Sponsor and Partner Organizations A listing of the sponsor

organizations in this study, as well as the best-practice (“partner”)
organizations that were benchmarked for their performance and
practices in knowledge management and innovation.

6 Executive Summary A bird’s-eye view of the study, presenting

key findings, the methodology used throughout the course of the
study, and a profile of participants. The findings are explored in detail
in the following sections.

17 Key Findings An in-depth look at the findings of this study. The

findings are supported by quantitative data and qualitative examples
of practices employed by the partner organizations.

99 Partner Organization Profiles Background information on the

partner organizations, as well as their innovative practices to drive
knowledge management.

Sponsor Organizations

Air Products and Chemicals Inc.

Boehringer Ingelheim GmbH

Bristol-Myers Squibb Company

Canadian International Development Agency

Cargill Inc.
Cemex S.A. de C.V.

CitiBank N.A.

Conoco Inc.

Department of Defense, Canada

DuPont

Exxon Mobil Corporation

Halliburton Company

Intel Corporation

Johnson & Johnson

KPMG International

PetroBras

Renault S.A.

Siemens Medical Solutions

Solvay S.A.

Sun Life Financial Services of Canada Inc.

3M*

TXU Corporation

United Parcel Service (UPS) Inc.

U.S. Department of Navy

U.S. Department of State

U.S. General Accounting Office

U.S. National Security Agency

U.S. Social Security Administration

The World Bank*

Xerox Corporation

* This organization also participated as a partner organization.

Partner Organizations

The Boeing Company, Rocketdyne Division

Hallmark Cards Inc. **

Millennium Pharmaceuticals Inc.

NASA and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory

3M

Wells Fargo & Company**

The World Bank

** Data only. No site visit.

Executive Summary
This report, based on the tenth consortium benchmarking on
knowledge management (KM) conducted by the American
Productivity & Quality Center (APQC), explores how innovative
organizations manage their knowledge and how to approach KM to
drive innovation.

Innovation is important to all organizations in all sectors, whether for-

profit, government, or nonprofit. In an economy powered by
knowledge workers, the better use of knowledge can lead to faster,
less risky, and more vibrant innovation. In technical organizations
such as many of those studied by APQC, knowledge is often the raw
material as well as the product of their work. Do these organizations
—known for their innovation—create, manage, or leverage their
knowledge more effectively or differently than other organizations? Is
the way they manage knowledge part of the reason these
organizations are so innovative? The study team has found the
answer to be a resounding “yes.”

With input from the study’s sponsors, APQC has found that
organizations are interested in how innovative organizations manage
knowledge in domains and functions one would expect to be related
to innovation, such as R&D and new product development. Also,
many organizations want to know how to address structural and
cultural barriers to KM in technical and research settings and how
leaders can support the adoption of new behaviors to overcome
barriers. Other critical factors are enabling the flow and use of
knowledge across boundaries and promoting collaboration in virtual
settings. Measurement is a major challenge for most organizations,
who want to learn how to measure changes in the rate and value of
innovation resulting from increased knowledge sharing and
collaboration and want to measure time saved and mistakes avoided
through reuse and sharing of knowledge.
This report chronicles the value that innovative organizations find in
better managing the flow and reuse of knowledge, effective practices
to enhance knowledge creation and reuse for innovation, and
implications for other organizations that might wish to better nurture
knowledge and its flow to accelerate and enhance innovation.
Study Focus
This report is the culmination of a collaborative research effort
conducted over a six-month period that involved 30 sponsors and
seven best-practice partner organizations. These organizations
joined with APQC to find best practices in using knowledge
management to drive innovation. The study’s approach was to
gather data on current knowledge-related innovation policies and
practices from both sponsors and partners and then to study the
partners in detail. In order to understand whether or not KM should
be approached differently if innovation is the desired outcome, the
APQC study team gathered data around five scope areas:
1. how to foster a supportive culture and communicate the link
among KM, innovation, and business strategy and results;

2. how to enable collaboration in order to create and share

new knowledge;

3. how to establish support roles and structures, including key

leadership, community, and individual roles, the role of the
KM organization, and the role of subject matter experts;

4. how to engage the educational and training functions and

incorporate strategies to recruit and train new employees to
support knowledge creation and innovation; and

5. how to measure the success of consciously managing

knowledge in support of innovation.

This report describes the challenges and successful approaches

used by these innovative organizations. The goal is to help guide
others in their design and implementation of strategies to enhance
effective knowledge creation and reuse in support of innovation.
Study Findings
The APQC study team discovered 15 overarching patterns, insights,
and findings about innovative organizations that are apparent in a
variety of settings and solutions and are often related. Much greater
detail is available in the report that follows and in the partners’ case
studies, including the knowledge-related challenges they faced and
how they addressed them.
1. Efficient Innovation—Efficient innovation does not imply
less creativity. Access to information, ideas, and
experience enables individuals and teams to devote their
time to build on good ideas and incorporate them into
innovative products and processes. Nor does it imply less
need for attention to the human and social capital aspects
of KM. At the outset of the study, the study team expected
to find among the study partners a focus on using KM to
enable more innovation. Instead, the greater emphasis was
on using KM to become more efficient innovators.
Competitive pressures and attrition issues require
increased productivity, quality, and yield from innovation
processes. The study partners use KM as one way to do
that by: reusing designs, knowledge, and lessons learned
and thus avoiding to repeat mistakes; helping people
connect and knowledge to flow across boundaries;
providing efficient access to information, experts, and
communities; capturing knowledge; and enabling scientists
to focus.

2. Managing technical and scientific information—

Managing complex and/or technical products, processes,
and disciplines is no small feat when dealing with huge
amounts of technical information that crosses many
disciplines, formats, and organizational boundaries. The
technical and scientific nature and intensity of the partners’
processes and products impel them to incorporate
 information issues into their knowledge management
approaches.

3. Centrality of information technology and repositories—

Information technology (IT) and databases play a much
more strategic role in scientific and technology- intensive
situations than in many others APQC has studied. IT
applications, content management systems, and portals
are not just convenient; they are central to how work gets
done and innovation happens. Study partners aim to
provide people with targeted and meaningful views of
prodigious amounts of multi- dimensional information and
access to experts that could fuel innovation. IT and
database systems enable virtual work, distributed teams,
and access to content by the public and other external
partners and stakeholders. IT also has a major role in
facilitating knowledge flows within project teams.

4. More conscious knowledge management—The value

placed on knowledge and sharing it is not new. What is
new is the realization that the ever-increasing challenges of
efficient innovation require more robust information
management and KM approaches. With the exception of
the World Bank, the partners’ formal KM initiatives are fairly
recent in origin. The World Bank’s formal KM initiative
started in 1996; NASA JPL, Boeing Rocketdyne, and 3M
since 1999 have made more conscious and concerted
knowledge-sharing efforts. Millennium, as a young
organization, formed a dedicated KM team in 2000.

5. A bias against reuse of knowledge—Although scientists

and engineers espouse the values of knowledge sharing as
central to innovation, there is a strong bias for invention
and a reticence to reuse knowledge. Study partners have a
variety of approaches to overcome this strong cultural and
professional bias including facilitating diverse teams,
 making experts available to explain how an earlier
invention could work in a new setting, rewarding for reuse,
and sharing success stories. Study partners also have a
variety of methods to create relationships and trust across
boundaries.

6. Expertise locators—When knowledge is highly

specialized, creating context to make it understandable and
useful for others becomes more challenging. Delivering
information is not enough to ensure reuse. Access to
people with knowledge is at least as important as access to
information. Expertise locator systems and people who can
assist in identifying potential experts for teams are
important enabling approaches to reuse knowledge in 3M,
NASA JPL, Boeing Rocketdyne, Millennium, and the World
Bank.

7. Building social capital and spanning boundaries—

Enabling people with ideas and experience to connect with
others who can incorporate those ideas into their own
creations catalyzes innovation. The focus on information
management only increases the need to deal with cultural
issues to enable knowledge sharing. This has required the
study partners to address cultural issues and boundary-
spanning needs.

Causing knowledge to cross boundaries is a challenge in

all organizations. Knowledge is sticky and only moves
when a process exists to facilitate it. The partners create
bridges so that knowledge can cross the boundaries that
separate smaller cultures found within their disciplines,
programs, and project teams. To build social capital, the
study partners use a variety of methods to unite groups and
build trust, such as creating venues—physical and virtual—
where people can share experiences. Providing
opportunities for people to connect with others can lead to
 “orchestrated serendipity.” The study partners arrange
circumstances to increase the likelihood this will occur.

One of the sponsors described a vision of a seamless

process of knowledge and information flows. “Seamless
collaboration [would exist] across subject areas, leading to
reuse and repurposing of past analysis to leverage new
research/ analytical efforts.” It may be seamless to the end
user, but the behind-the-scenes resources are extensive.

8. Enabling work—The study partners use a variety of KM

approaches and principles to put information and
knowledge in the hands of people when they need it, be it
before, during, or after projects and just in time, just
enough, and “just for me.” They attempt to utilize the
collective knowledge of the organization— often including
knowledge from partners, suppliers, and customers—to
bear during the innovation process. Examples include
creating maps to information organized by discipline,
conducting and capturing project reviews and After- Action
Reviews, and using communities of practice as a source of
ideas and support. As APQC has found in other studies, if
you want people to use knowledge and information during
their projects, you have to put it where they trip over it.

9. Communities of practice (CoPs)—Communities of

practice are primarily used to provide a forum for cross-
disciplinary knowledge sharing among professionals.
Communities also play the essential role of expeditor to
overcome barriers created by a formal structure; through
community relationships, people can find someone to open
doors or supply connections and information to help their
project proceed.

All of the partners have approaches for forming and

facilitating virtual teams and communities, inside the
organization and with partners. Turning innovative ideas
 into useful products has long depended on collaborative
work relationships. In a global organization, those
relationships are often virtual work relationships. Study
partners have explicit techniques for enabling virtual teams.

10. Culture change—How do best-practice organizations send

the message that best practices and lessons learned drive
innovation and prevent mistakes or reinvention? The study
partners create an awareness of available resources for
knowledge sharing, connect people across boundaries, and
address rewards systems that help or hinder knowledge
flows. They also publicize knowledge sources and
resources and showcase success stories and lessons
learned.

11. Human resource practices—The study partners are

purposeful in how they use human resource practices to
set the stage for knowledge sharing and innovation,
including their hiring and selection processes, rewards and
recognition, and their expectations for knowledge sharing in
everyday work. All five study partners had processes to
recruit for certain innovative personalities that can succeed
in their cultures. They look for people who are problem
solvers, have a strong work ethic, and are highly creative.
All have extensive reward and recognition systems for
innovation, and most include knowledge-sharing behaviors
in their performance appraisal systems.

To further encourage innovative people, 3M, Boeing

Rocketdyne, and NASA JPL have vehicles for nurturing
ideas and encouraging innovators who may not be part of
the currently funded agenda, but who may hold the promise
of future breakthroughs.

12. KM and learning—Linking knowledge management efforts

with the learning function is most powerfully demonstrated
in the World Bank. A core group located in the World Bank
 Institute facilitates KM. In addition to enabling communities
and distance learning, the institute helps multidisciplinary
teams build both their own and client capacities to address
key challenges, such as HIV/AIDS. The focus is to improve
both team accomplishment (immediate performance) and
mastery (performance over time). The program provides
facilitators to assist the team in tapping into its own diverse
knowledge.

13. External collaboration—Knowledge sharing with the

external world is present in all of the partners. Collaboration
initiatives are a major focus for KM efforts within the World
Bank and NASA JPL. The KM team at Millennium has a
major focus on enabling information and knowledge
sharing with its strategic partners. The study found less use
of collaborative techniques to capture customer knowledge,
but there were notable exceptions such as Millennium,
whose strategy depends on matching biopharmaceuticals
to target populations of patients.

14. KM infrastructure and resources—Each of the partners

has a KM infrastructure that supports, guides, and links all
of their KM initiatives, even though it doesn’t dictate
actions. Partner organizations typically have three critical
elements in their knowledge management support
structures: a steering group, usually including or sponsored
by senior executives; a KM core group; and resources from
different business units/functions to augment or
operationalize the initiatives.

The study partners have strong, active support from senior-

level executives and an ongoing KM group responsible for
stewarding the process. For example, Millennium hired an
experienced KM leader to drive their KM strategy and has
dedicated, significant central resources to KM. Other
partners use a more decentralized model, but all have
 explicit roles and people dedicated full or part time to
enabling KM strategies and interventions.

Information specialists and corporate research librarians

have a more central and explicit role than in traditional KM
initiatives, again perhaps due to the technical topics and
challenges involved. They organize and facilitate
communities of practice, manage the behind-the-scenes
content management processes, and help people find
answers and experts, among other roles. Some serve on
the KM steering team.

15. Measurement—Although the study partners have many

success stories of knowledge sharing contributing to
important innovation, they did not demonstrate any
breakthrough approaches for linking the impact of
enhanced knowledge management to innovation outcomes
or efficiency. Most of the best-practice organizations
measure some aspect of their innovation rates and
effectiveness and may also measure KM activities, but
have not developed sophisticated methods to create
metrics that track the relationship between the two or tie
KM to the bottom line. Partners and sponsors both reported
that the most frequent methods to measure the success of
knowledge transfer are conducting user surveys, tracking
the number of knowledge objects accessed and used,
tracking knowledge transfer activities, and capturing
meaningful stories of the power of knowledge capture and
transfer for innovation. Partners treat KM as a strategic
enabler and have not yet addressed the measurement link
to outcomes.
Methodology
APQC’s benchmarking methodology was developed in 1993 and
serves as one of the premier methods for successful benchmarking
in the world. It is an extremely powerful tool for identifying best and
innovative practices and for facilitating the actual transfer of those
practices.

Phase 1: Plan

The planning phase of the study began in February 2002. During

that period, secondary research sources were used to identify
potential best-practice organizations. Candidate organizations were
invited to participate in a screening process. Based on the results of
the screening process, as well as company capacity or willingness to
participate in the study, the final list of seven partners was
determined.

A kickoff meeting was held in June 2002, during which the sponsors
refined the study scope, gave input on the data collection tools, and
indicated their preferences for site visits to partner organizations.

Finalizing the data collection tools and piloting it within the sponsor
group concluded the planning phase.

Phase 2: Collect

Three tools were used to collect information for this study.

1. Screening survey—qualitative and quantitative questions
designed to determine whether or not an organization has
best practices that fit within the study scope

2. Detailed questionnaire—quantitative questions designed

to collect objective data across all participating
organizations
 3. Site visit guide—qualitative questions that parallel the
areas of inquiry in the detailed questionnaire, which serves
as the structured discussion framework for all site visits

Partners were selected to host day-long site visits attended by

sponsors and members of the study team. The APQC study team
prepared written reports (case studies) of each site visit and
submitted it to the partner organization for approval or verification.

Phase 3: Analyze

The subject matter experts and APQC analyzed both the quantitative
and qualitative information gained from the data collection tools. An
analysis of the data, as well as case examples based on the site
visits, is contained in this report.

Phase 4: Adapt

Adaptation and improvement stemming from the best practices in

this report occur after organizations apply key findings to their own
operations. APQC staff members are available to help organizations
create action plans based on the study findings.
Participant Representation
The 30 organizations that sponsored this study represent both the
public and private sector and a variety of industries. Almost one-third
of participants were government, 21 percent were from the
manufacturing industry, and 12 percent were from the health care
and pharmaceutical industries. Other industries represented by the
sponsors include transportation, telecommunications, insurance,
chemical/ petroleum, and financial services.

Fifty-seven percent of the study partners and 54 percent of the study

sponsors that completed the detailed questionnaire reported data
from an enterprise perspective. The remaining organizations
reported data from a business unit or departmental perspective.

The comments of study sponsors about their vision of KM-

enabled innovation enriched APQC’s understanding of what
issues are most pressing to organizations. When asked what
best practices using KM to support innovation would look
like, study sponsors gave a variety of answers.

“Best practices in using KM to drive innovation would show a

relatively seamless process, where best practices and
lessons learned are shared across the organization and
where experts and expertise are known.”

“Cross-disciplinary teams dedicated to a task or problem

would have sufficient resources and time to think out
solutions in new and insightful ways. The best practice would
identify mechanisms for the establishment and functioning of
these teams.”

“The knowledge capture and reuse process is integrated with

the research process. Part of this is ‘implementing’ a sharing
culture across the organization.”
 “Our goal is to create an organization that gets increasingly
better at reducing the ‘cycle time of decisions’ from initial
recognition/submission of an innovative idea to full
implementation of that idea.”

“When an individual has an innovative idea, he or she knows

where and how to record it, and the systems are in place to
nurture the idea, help it progress through evaluation and
development, and bring it to market, using the best practices
at each stage, with vigorous collaboration, too.”

“A cross-functional, highly collaborative global team would

involve customers to develop new solutions to customers’
problems, leverage all available explicit internal and external
knowledge, codify new tacit knowledge, [and] use
appropriate technical tools.”

With these ambitious ideal scenarios in mind, APQC and the study
sponsors selected five best-practice partners to visit from a number
of companies provided as candidates by APQC. The site visit
partners selected were 3M, Boeing and its Rocketdyne Division,
NASA JPL (Jet Propulsion Laboratory), Millennium Pharmaceuticals,
and the World Bank.

All of the study partners selected for site visits had certain
characteristics in common: they are outstanding innovators, usually
working with technical and complex information, and they have a
bevy of experts working in a variety of interdependent disciplines
who must collaborate and share knowledge for innovation to occur.
These organizations have a strong emphasis on knowledge
initiatives that cross boundaries, and most are enabling
multifunctional teams to access and use relevant information and
knowledge. And all partners could articulate the role of knowledge in
innovation and how they were managing it.

The partners differed in the maturity and breadth of their formal KM

efforts, their missions—some were for profit and others were not for
profit—and the pressures to be more disciplined in their efforts to
manage knowledge. These factors led to different approaches to
collaborate and opposing philosophies about rewards among the
partners. Some of the partners selected were measuring their KM
efforts and attempt to link it to outcomes; others only measure
innovation.

Both the partners’ commonalities and their diversity contributed to

the study team’s ability to extract major patterns and a variety of
successful approaches that will be elaborated in the remainder of
this report.
Organization Of Report
The purpose of this report is to guide the successful design and
implementation of knowledge management in support of innovation.
Chapter 1 will present a model for knowledge-enabled learning and
innovation, which was created to illustrate how the findings can be
applied to different parts of the innovation and knowledge cycle in
organizations. The model serves to illustrate the ways partners
enable knowledge at various stages in the innovation and
organizational learning process. The structure of the report follows
the model.

Chapter 1 provides definitions of innovation and knowledge used

throughout the study, as well as a brief introduction to the best-
practice partners. It also introduces the model for knowledge-
enabled innovation that will serve as the organizing schema for the
subsequent chapters.

Chapter 2 describes the first component of the model, the culture

and organizational context, and how study partners address the
structural and cultural barriers to innovation.

Chapter 3 describes the second component of the model, which is

how partners recognize when an innovation is needed and how they
elevate and nurture new ideas for future innovation.

Chapter 4 provides case examples of forming teams, because teams

are the way study partners and most organizations transform
inventive ideas into actual innovations. This chapter also addresses
the use of virtual teams and virtual collaboration.

Chapter 5 explains how, after a team is formed, various KM

approaches can enable the work process itself, especially when the
work is highly technical in nature. Many of the information
management approaches are found at this stage.
Chapter 6 addresses how organizations convert local lessons and
knowledge into organizational knowledge.

Chapter 7 showcases the outcomes the partners are experiencing,

how they are measuring innovation, and ideas for more rigorous
measurement of innovation.

Chapter 8 addresses the KM infrastructure, including the roles and

staffing of the KM organization and lessons learned by the KM
practitioners in the partner organizations.

The five case studies provide detailed stories and context for
understanding how the study partners designed and implemented
their approaches.

Together, these chapters and the case studies address the question
that drove the study, “Does KM differ if innovation is the desired
outcome? If so, how?” Throughout the report, issues are also raised
about the further potential for using KM principles and approaches
for even more impact on innovation.
Subject Matter Expertise
Kimberly Lopez

A KM specialist in APQC’s KM practice area, Kimberly Lopez has

worked extensively in designing KM solutions and systems for
Fortune 500 organizations. In addition to being a contributing author
of APQC’s knowledge management publications, she authored “How
to Measure the Value of Knowledge Management” for KM Review.
Lopez also has led process and metric benchmarking studies in the
areas of knowledge management, after-sales support systems,
technology-based training, employee recruiting and retention, and
faculty instructional development.
Special Advisers
Carla O’Dell

Carla O’Dell is the president of APQC. The focus of O’Dell’s current

work is KM and the sharing of best practices. Under her direction,
APQC has become a national leader in developing knowledge
management publications, training, and consortium benchmarking
studies. She is the co-author of If Only We Knew What We Know:
The Transfer of Internal Knowledge and Best Practice, with C.
Jackson Grayson and Nilly Essaides (Free Press, 1998).

Dorothy Leonard

Dorothy Leonard is a Harvard Business School professor. She has

more than 30 years of experience in research, consulting, and
teaching about innovation, technology commercialization, and
organizational capabilities. That work culminated in her book
Wellsprings of Knowledge: Building and Sustaining the Sources of
Innovation (Harvard Business School Press, 1998). When Sparks
Fly: Igniting Creativity in Groups (Harvard Business School Press,
1999) co-authored by Walter Swap, explores the theme of
knowledge generation.
Part 1: Key Findings

Chapter List
Chapter 1: Knowledge-enabled Learning and Innovation

Chapter 2: The Structural and Cultural Context for Knowledge and

Innovation

Chapter 3: Identifying the Need

Chapter 4: Forming the Team

Chapter 5: Enabling Project and Work Processes

Chapter 6: Organizational Learning

Chapter 7: Outcomes and Benefits of Using Knowledge to Drive

Innovation

Chapter 8: Knowledge Management Infrastructure

Chapter 1: Knowledge-enabled Learning and
Innovation
Overview
Why are some organizations so innovative? They seem to
continuously come up with new products, designs, and business
models, while others race to catch up. Innovative organizations
(especially if they reach profitability) are the darlings of the stock
market. Innovation ignites the economy, as new products and
services respond to a market demand or create one.

By all indications, innovation matters.

This report focuses on a specific driver of innovation: knowledge. Do

innovative organizations create, manage, or leverage their
knowledge more effectively or differently than other organizations? Is
the way they manage knowledge part of the reason these
organizations are so innovative? If so, what can we learn from them
to accelerate and enhance innovation in other organizations?

Although there are many other factors that affect the ability of an
organization to innovate, this study set out to answer questions
about how they manage knowledge for innovation. Knowledge
management, as defined by APQC, is a systematic approach
(integrating people, processes, technology, and content) to enable
information and knowledge to be created and flow to the right people
at the right time so that their work and decisions can add value to the
mission of the organization. Through eight years of research and
practice, APQC has consistently found that knowledge management
can make organizations more efficient and effective by enabling
employees to share what they know as well as learn from one
another through a variety of approaches that have come to be called
knowledge management (KM).

Can KM also make organizations more innovative? There are two

ways to think about that question. The first is from the perspective of
creating new knowledge. When triggered by the word “innovation,”
most people think of the lone inventor with the breakthrough idea.
Yet, the truly new idea “never before seen under the sun” that
becomes a market success is a rarity. More often, one finds that
existing ideas or technologies are combined in new ways or used in
a new context or for a new market. 3M has built a $60 billion
business on taking ideas and technologies and combining and
recombining in hundreds of ways and venues. Who knew we needed
Post-it Notes™ until 3M gave them to us?

So the first perspective asks if KM tools and principles can lead to

more invention and innovation. In fact, 3M’s 100-year history is filled
with success stories. Some are about innovative individuals, such as
Dick Drew, who invented Scotch tape™; Art Fry, who invented Post-
it™ Notes; and Carl Miller, who invented thermographic office
copying. Each was able to connect knowledge about a technology
with knowledge about a customer or market need.

The second way to think about how KM can make organizations

more innovative asks “What if we better managed the knowledge
employees learned the hard way, through experience?” Those
lessons learned, inventions, skills, judgment, and insights—if brought
to bear on new problems, products, projects, and processes—
should contribute to more efficient innovation at lower costs, a faster
speed, and with lower risks. Efficiency, rather than creativity, would
be the goal.

The next section sets the stage for addressing these two
perspectives by explaining how APQC and its partners define
innovation, knowledge, and the relationship between the two.
Defining Innovation and Knowledge
For the purposes of this study, APQC defined innovation as new or
modified processes or products that reach the marketplace or, when
put into use, increase the performance or competitiveness of the
organization. Innovation may include new designs, techniques,
managerial tools, organizational approaches, patents, licenses,
business models, and paradigms. The study team distinguishes
innovation, as an organizational capability, from “creativity,” which is
recognized as the capability of people to invent novel and useful
ideas. Creative ideas may not turn into innovations for the
organization, but they are the source that innovative solutions come
from. Therefore, the study team assumed that for an organization to
be innovative, it has to nurture the creative process in the service of
innovation.

Knowledge in the context of innovation falls into two major forms

relevant for this report: explicit and tacit.

Explicit knowledge can be thought of as information or knowledge

that has been codified. This explicit knowledge or information can
take the form of documents, design specifications, project reports,
lessons learned, research reports, white papers, databases, policy
manuals, and similar documented information based on experience.
Many of the study partners spend a great deal of their KM resources
on codifying, labeling, storing, and making this explicit knowledge
available to their staff in order to fuel innovation.

Tacit knowledge refers to knowledge residing in the heads of people

that is not codified. A person becomes aware of his or her tacit
knowledge when faced with a situation or problem. When a person
can articulate this knowledge, it can sometimes be explicitly
documented. This dynamic knowledge itself cannot be cataloged,
although organizations can create catalogs better known as
directories or expert locators to label and find people with mission-
critical knowledge and experience.
Finally, knowledge creation refers to the capability of individuals or
groups within the organization, such as project teams or
communities, to combine explicit and tacit knowledge and create
new knowledge, either by synthesizing and enhancing their collective
knowledge or inventing something completely new.
Partner Organizations and Innovation
Innovation is seen as an explicit driver of growth and mission
effectiveness in all of the study’s partners. The following is a brief
introduction to each study partner and how they view innovation and
the role of knowledge in the innovation process.

3M

3M celebrated its 100th year in 2002, touting “A Century of

Innovation.” New products are a hallmark of 3M, and it introduces
hundreds of products in dozens of sectors each year. 3M’s ability to
leverage and combine multiple technologies to create novel solutions
to customers’ problems is a key driver for the company’s growth.
More than 35 percent of annual sales come from products less than
four years old, and 10 percent are from products less than one year
old. 3M spends approximately $1.1 billion annually through an R&D
organization of about 7,000 people worldwide.

3M defines innovation as the process by which the creative ideas of

employees, customers, and suppliers are turned into products that
become of value to the company.

The Boeing Company, Rocketdyne Division

The Boeing Company is the world’s No. 1 commercial jet maker, and
its global reach includes customers in 145 countries, employees in
more than 60 countries, and operations in 26 states. Since the
founding of Rocketdyne in 1955, the company (now a division of
Boeing) has evolved into a global leader in applied power, from
sophisticated aerospace propulsion systems to space-borne
electrical power.

The role of innovation in Boeing Rocketdyne is to provide a

competitive advantage for existing and future company offerings.
One way Boeing Rocketdyne defines innovation is as an
advancement in a methodology, practice, process, or concept that
improves the product (i.e., hardware or service) or improves cost,
time-to-market, and/or quality (e.g., performance, weight,
functionality, and life reliability). Evolutionary innovation, rather than
disruptive innovation, is the norm for Boeing Rocketdyne’s R&D
function.

Millennium Pharmaceuticals

Founded in 1993 and headquartered in Cambridge, Mass.,

Millennium Pharmaceuticals is a biopharmaceutical company
focused on the discovery and development of small molecule
“biotherapeutics” and predictive medicine products. Millennium
focuses on four major treatment targets: oncology, metabolic
diseases, cardiovascular conditions, and inflammation.

Innovation is the lifeblood of the pharmaceutical industry, and

Millennium’s management believes that KM and knowledge sharing
help to drive innovation and new products to market faster.
Millennium’s reason for managing knowledge is to give researchers,
scientists, and all personnel access to new data and enable them to
discover links among molecules, drug targets, and markets.

NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratories

NASA, the aerospace and exploration agency for the United States,
has been focused on innovation since its founding. The Jet
Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), managed by the California Institute of
Technology, is NASA’s leading center for robotic exploration of the
solar system. JPL also manages the worldwide deep space network,
which communicates with spacecraft and conducts scientific
investigations from its complexes in California’s Mojave Desert; near
Goldstone in Spain; and in Australia. JPL’s cameras and sensors are
aboard satellites circling Earth to study the ozone, oceans, and other
earth sciences.
JPL defines innovation as the process by which an entity (i.e., a
person or a team) is able to locate and use shared knowledge and
create new knowledge for the purpose of stimulating the
development of innovative solutions. Innovative solutions are
solutions that represent creative ideas (i.e., novel and useful) that
are implemented[1].

The World Bank

The World Bank is the world’s largest provider of development

assistance and provides about $20 billion in new loans each year.
The World Bank also plays a vital role in coordinating with other
organizations—including private, government, and multilateral—to
ensure that resources are used to their full effect in supporting a
country’s development agenda.

Innovation and reuse of knowledge are one way the World Bank
addresses the needs of its constituents. The World Bank’s clients
need more than money; they need expertise, advice, and a forum to
create innovative solutions. When faced with massive undertakings,
such as the rebuilding of Afghanistan or clean water in
underdeveloped countries, the World Bank must be able to find,
reuse, and adapt experiences and expertise from around the world,
as well as provide clients and experts a way to connect with each
other so they can pool their knowledge and invent new solutions to
new challenges.

[1]Majchrzak, Ann, Lynne P. Cooper, and Olivia E. Neece.

Knowledge Reuse in the Radical Innovation Process at the Jet
Propulsion Laboratory. White paper, March 11, 2002.
The Role Of Knowledge In Innovation
Innovation needs and strategies differ among the cases studied, but
all the study partners value knowledge, can articulate how it relates
to innovation, and seek to manage it better.

Boeing Rocketdyne defines knowledge as a synthesis of information,

experiences, processes, and understanding within an individual and
cultural context. Boeing Rocketdyne defines KM as a systematic
approach to generating process and product knowledge and
organizing and retaining the process and product knowledge so that
it can be effectively applied to product improvements and future
products. The KM objectives are to improve quality, lower costs, and
enhance new process development in support of new program and
customer requirements.

Millennium, like most pharmaceutical companies, is in a race to

reduce the cost and time-to-market for new drugs. Millennium is
seeking to increase R&D productivity, reduce reliance on
blockbusters, and increase therapeutic competitiveness. Millennium
is responding via three strategies: a major focus on personalized
medicine, productivity enhancement, and a growing and sustainable
pipeline of breakthrough products.

For Millennium, the unmasking of the genome has provided

enormous opportunities in drug discovery, but also has unleashed
vast information from disparate sources such as alliance partners
and scientific literature. The goal of KM at Millennium is to “enable
the flow of information and knowledge across the company—aligning
technologies, processes, and incentives to create an environment in
which people have the information they need to make better, faster
decisions.”

Both NASA and JPL missions require the use of past knowledge and
experience, new approaches, and fine-tuned collaboration and
knowledge sharing. NASA and JPL believe knowledge and its
management are critical to capture and integrate lessons learned, in
order to manage the risks associated with space exploration and
human space flight, to manage the specialized knowledge of its
scientists and engineers, to mitigate the loss of knowledge through
retirement, and to be able to share knowledge with the public.

In the case of 3M, Chairman and CEO Jim McNerney presented the
company with his 2X/3X challenge. He wants to see two times the
number of ideas at the front end of the process and three times the
number of winners resulting from the process. Getting these ideas
will require 3M to intensify its support for idea generation, as well as
the productive conversion of those ideas to successful products. This
has led to a desire to take the historical focus on knowledge sharing
in R&D, intensify it, and expand the concept of KM and knowledge
sharing to other parts of the business, including sales.

For the World Bank, lending alone cannot reduce poverty.

Knowledge sharing allows new actors into the dialogue about
development and provides global access to development know-how,
which could change the poverty equation. The goals for the World
Bank in sharing knowledge are increased speed (faster cycle times
on solutions), improved quality (better quality service), increased
innovation (testing new approaches), and reduced costs (eliminate
unnecessary processes).
Knowledge Management In Scientific and
Technical Settings
Four of the five partners—3M, Boeing Rocketdyne, NASA and JPL,
and Millennium—produce highly technical products based on
scientific and technical disciplines. (The World Bank’s advice and
decisions to lend are certainly influenced by technical issues, but
sociopolitical and economic constraints are at least as strong.) Does
effective KM face any distinctive issues in scientific and technical
settings?

The answer is “yes.” The distinctions appear to arise from two

sources: the nature of the knowledge itself and the nature of the
professions doing the knowledge work.

The Nature of the Knowledge and Innovation Being

Managed

First, with the exception of the World Bank, the partners must create
breakthroughs and designs within the constraints of the laws of
science: physics, chemistry, biology, genetics, and material science.
Designs must conform to a century or more of research and practice
in thermodynamics, aerodynamics, protein science, and strength of
materials, for example. Communities of practice and design teams
may debate how these laws will manifest themselves in unexpected
or extreme settings such as deep space or hidden in the
mitochondria of a cell in a sick patient. They may devise clever
methods and machines to manipulate and circumvent these laws.
But at the end of the day, what will work is not a matter of opinion.

Second, the pace of new knowledge from experimentation, inside

and outside the partners, is expanding at a breathtaking rate, which
forces practitioners to narrow their field of work. It also leads to a
strong dependency on information management to update and
deliver targeted content to users.
Third, this knowledge is being used in situations where the stakes
are high: loss of money and time invested, the potential risk to
human life and well being, the loss of public confidence and funding,
and the potential loss of market share and competitive advantage. A
mistake on a Mars mission can cost billions; the opportunity cost of
not being the first to bring a drug to market can cost $800 million
dollars and 15 years of research; and the grief from a passenger jet
crash is incalculable. The study partners feel they are playing in a
very high-risk game; the knowledge they use or reuse must be of the
highest quality, relevance, and trustworthiness. Some of the study
partners have encountered risk aversion because the consequences
are so high. This leads to a fear of reusing someone else’s solution
that might not be successful in the current circumstances.

The Nature of the Professionals Doing the Work

The second major influence of these settings on KM appears to arise

from the professionals doing the work. Many of the staff working at
the study partners joined because they wanted to do novel work,
excel in their disciplines, or make a unique contribution to the
mission. This leads to dilemmas for designing KM approaches that
value sharing and reuse.

There is a strong bias for invention and against reuse. How

does one design a collaborative KM-sharing culture and
processes (and gain efficiency in innovation) if everyone
wants to be a hero, get their bust in the Smithsonian Air and
Space Museum, or win a Nobel Prize for breakthrough
science? Innovation in these settings requires teamwork and
cross-disciplinary information and knowledge sharing
because of the complexity of the systems being modified and
designed or, in the cases of Millennium and the World Bank,
the number of perspectives and stakeholders that are
engaged in the creation and implementation.
 The nature of the professions highlights another dilemma.
On the one hand, scientists and engineers see the value of
knowledge sharing. Their disciplines reward publishing and
speaking. On the other hand, intellectual property issues and
professional jealousy can cause experts to hide their
knowledge from suppliers and alliance partners who might
get the jump on them in the marketplace or peers who might
publish first.

Because the professions and the organizations revere

heroes and winners, many people fear admitting mistakes or
failures, even though the value of that information to the
organization would be high.

The knowledge domains and experience base used in

design can be so specialized that the loss of key people is
even more devastating than in other settings.

Some of the consequences of, and responses to, these two

influences on KM in scientific and technical settings will be first be
discussed in Chapter 2 on context and culture, but their influence is
so pervasive it will be seen throughout the report. A brief preview of
some of the consequences for KM follows.

There is a heavy emphasis on content management systems

and information management for the study partners,
including the World Bank. Content management systems
refer to the people, processes, and technology required to
manage the huge amounts of content and information in all
of our partners. There is also more reliance on databases
and repositories and the processes to manage and access
them than previously observed in KM research conducted by
APQC.

Organizations must have processes and people to scan and

synthesize internal and external databases and other kinds
 of knowledge into meaningful “packages” for delivery to
experts and project teams.

Facilitating effective cross-disciplinary teams is essential. KM

and innovation requires that people learn how to engage
constructively with multiple subject matter experts, both
academics and practitioners, in their teams or as mentors
and advisers to the innovation process. Each study partner
has a robust mechanism for expertise location.

Validation of the accuracy of the content is critical because

the stakes, both financial and human, are so high. Library
scientists play a much larger role in the study partner’s KM
efforts, both serving on the steering committees and being
integral players in delivering content.

There is a tremendous need to create relationships—social

capital—across projects, disciplines, time, and geography.

These issues influence the KM strategies and approaches used to

support innovation. To give a structure around which to discuss all
the issues and approaches, the APQC study team developed a
model of knowledge-enabled innovation.
A Model Of Knowledge-Enabled Learning
and Innovation
As the study team analyzed the knowledge-enabling strategies and
approaches of the partners, what emerged was a picture of definable
knowledge and learning approaches used to enable innovation.
Figure 1 depicts a model of knowledge-enabled learning and
innovation (KeLI), which illustrates the knowledge-enabling
approaches used at various points in the process: identifying needs,
forming teams, enabling work, and organizational learning. Under
each of these processes are some knowledge- enabling approaches
being used by the study partners. The arrow between organizational
learning and enabling project and work processes indicates a
closed-loop process of how knowledge embedded within the
organization is available and can be leveraged by other individuals
and future teams. The cultural and organizational context provides
the backdrop for the innovation processes and the KM-enabling
approaches. Supporting all the processes is the KM infrastructure,
comprised of KM strategies, roles, budgets, IT, and measurement.
The KeLI model provides an organizational schema for the
knowledge-sharing approaches within the stages of innovation and is
not intended to be a model for innovation or a stage-gate process for
innovation.
Figure 1: Knowledge-enabled Learning and Innovation (KeLI)
Model

The following is a brief description of each of these

components or processes in the KeLI model.

Culture and context—Each of the study partners’

approaches to innovation and KM has been shaped by their
organization’s structure, mission, and culture. These
provided the context for the processes that occur in the KeLI
model. Even though the cultures differ, the study partners
have responded to a set of similar structural and cultural
challenges: how to manage large amounts of technical
information; how to encourage people to share and learn
from others rather than invent new solutions; how to design
systems for content to flow and relationships to form across
boundaries; and how to ensure that reward and recognition
systems support desired behaviors. To successfully address
those challenges, their KM strategies have to adjust to their
culture and structure, as well as the business need driving
innovation.

Identify the need—The identification of a need launches the

knowledge-enabled learning and innovation process. This
study uncovered several needs that drive the use of
knowledge for innovation. A variety of voice-of-the-customer
techniques are used to help define, focus, and validate new
product development and innovation needs. Another need is
that many organizations are faced with an aging work force
and are trying to organize, document, and transfer existing
knowledge before it is lost. Most organizations face
marketplace pressures, but those who rely on the creation of
new products and services feel more anxiety than most.

Form a team—Most organizations use a team structure; but

are they preparing, chartering, and leveraging their teams
effectively? Chapter 4 will discuss the importance of forming
a team and will look at different types of teams used by the
study partners. The different teams include cross-functional
teams; diverse, virtual teams; and a mixture of cross-
functional and virtual teams. That chapter will also discuss
how organizations are preparing individual employees for
team-based work through training and learning functions,
expertise locator systems, and the importance of access to
relevant communities.

Enable project and work process—The next phase in the

KeLI model is to enable project and work processes. Chapter
5 will discuss how project and work processes are enabled
through knowledge-sharing activities. It will show how the
study partners have realized the importance of enabling
project and work processes by promoting access to
information, content, and people with knowledge.
Discussions will center around the use of technology,
collaboration, and how to access and reuse applicable
knowledge.

Embed in organizational learning—What happens to

knowledge created during the execution of work and project
processes? It is critical that organizations capture local
knowledge (i.e., proven solutions) and make them available
for reuse by individuals and teams. A key part of this capture
process is the one of communication about available
knowledge sources and resources available to the
organization. Whether in the form of e-mail alerts or story
telling, these activities help embed critical knowledge in the
organizational memory, which ensures that proven solutions
are used and past mistakes will not be repeated.

Identify outcomes—The final step in the KeLI model is to

identify the outcomes. Each of the elements of the KeLI
model is critical to the innovation process; but for an
organization to know its innovation processes are successful,
it must measure them. Typical outcomes measured include
faster (and better) decision making, lower risks, and lower
costs.

KM infrastructure—The KM infrastructure supports all of

the components of the KeLI model. The KM infrastructure
includes the KM strategy, roles and structures, budgets and
funding, IT, and measurement. An organization with a strong
KM infrastructure will be able to facilitate the knowledge-
enable learning and innovation process more effectively than
an organization without a KM infrastructure. All of the study
partners have established a KM infrastructure to support
knowledge-sharing activities at their organizations. This
chapter will provide an overview of the partner’s KM
infrastructure as well as lessons learned from their KM
journey.
Conclusion
Each of the remaining chapters in this report addresses one of the
components of the model, beginning with the organizational
characteristics, such as the nature of work and culture that can
profoundly affect innovation, patterns of learning, and knowledge
management. The remaining sections describe the approaches
taken by the study partners to enable knowledge creation and reuse
at each stage of the process.
Chapter 2: The Structural and Cultural
Context for Knowledge and Innovation
Overview
How do we change our culture to be more conducive to knowledge
sharing and reuse for innovation? That may be the most frequent
question KM practitioners ask APQC, and this study is no exception.
Chapter 1 highlighted two characteristics of scientific and technical
settings that raise cultural and structural challenges for a KM
initiative: the nature of the knowledge being managed and the
professionals who have to use it. This chapter will address these and
other issues emerging from the culture and context of the partners.

Through its research and practice with many different types of

organizations, APQC has found it is more realistic to build a KM
strategy starting with the existing culture, rather than to try to change
it by exhortation or edict. APQC’s 1999 Best-Practice Report
Creating a Knowledge-Sharing Culture detailed how successful
knowledge sharing is tightly linked to the core cultural values of the
organization and works best if it enables people to pursue that value
more fully. The approach to KM should closely mimic the
organization’s approach to operations (i.e., central or local control,
autocratic or laissez-faire, and human-centered or results-centered).
The study team also found that the study partners had strong
management support and peer pressure for people to help each
other, collaborate, and share their knowledge. People who did not
share became marginalized.

The study sponsors reported that their cultures profoundly impact

how they position, design, deploy, and reinforce knowledge sharing
in pursuit of innovation. A supportive culture is not just important to
KM; it is essential for successful innovation. In APQC’s 2003 Best-
Practice Report Improving New Product Development Performance
and Practices, more than 100 organizations provided data, including
examples of 111 practices, methods, and approaches that could
potentially affect success in the marketplace. The report defined new
product development success in several ways, including the impact
on sales and profits and the extent to which the product opened new
markets. Two of the strong correlates of success clearly relate to
culture:
1. a climate for innovation (aligned recognition and reward,
no punishment for risk taking, not risk averse, and good
communication) and

2. support for innovation (time dedicated to innovate,

resources available for unofficial projects, skunk works, and
idea awards).

The partners for this study use many approaches, KM related and
not, to create positive circumstances in their organizations. But they
face challenges in those efforts.
Structural and Cultural Challenges
The study partners face both structural and cultural challenges as
they adapt KM principles and approaches to the innovation process.
Some of the structural challenges are the barriers to information
access and knowledge sharing, exacerbated by the scientific
disciplines and complex technical nature of the work involved.
Scientific and technical staff often have allegiance to their disciplines
in addition to their functions and assignments. These disciplinary
“microcultures” have to be addressed as well. Structurally, the
partners wrestle with how to manage large amounts of technical
information from a variety of sources and how to help information for
innovation cross the boundaries of functions and disciplines.

The partners also face barriers that are more cultural and human in
nature, in the sense that the barriers involve norms, beliefs, and
behaviors. These include:

a prevalent bias against knowledge reuse and a preference

for invention by scientific and technical staff, augmented by a
fear of exposing mistakes when sharing lessons learned, and

a need to help people form relationships and connections

with others across boundaries so they can share ideas and
create something new.

Giving people the time to share, reflect, and mentor is part of this
challenge. The following sections provide more detail on these
structural and cultural challenges. This includes how the partners
manage large amounts of information, push that information across
the disciplinary boundaries, dismantle cultural boundaries, and send
messages and use rewards and recognition to reinforce desired
collaborative behaviors.

Managing Large Amounts of Technical Information

3M, Boeing Rocketdyne, Millennium, NASA JPL, and the World
Bank all manage massive amounts of internal information (scientific
and project related), as well as external sources of scientific and
engineering literature and alliance partner information and
knowledge. Making that content meaningful, targeted, relevant, and
accessible is a major factor in streamlining the innovation process.

Jeanne Holm, NASA’s chief knowledge architect, summarized the

information overload challenges facing the space agency:

How do we manage the knowledge that we already have?

NASA has four million public Web pages. We get two billion hits
per month on our Web sites. We have a huge amount of
information that the American public is interested in seeing.
Knowledge management is getting the right information to the
right people at the right time, and helping people create
knowledge and share and act upon information in ways that will
measurably improve the performance of NASA and its partners.
[2 ]

For Millennium, the unmasking of the genome has provided

enormous opportunities in drug discovery, but also brought in
enormous amounts of information from disparate sources, such as
alliance partners and scientific literature. Managing that content is
critical to improving the discovery and development process. In
Millennium, taking the time of scientists away from work to document
findings was a major barrier that was addressed by providing content
harvesters to capture findings and put them in the database.

One consequence of the massive amounts of technical information is

a reliance on information technology to catalog, store, and access
information. Information technology and databases play a much
stronger role in scientific and technical knowledge management than
in many other organizations APQC has studied. Databases are a
foundation to managing information as part of the KM efforts of 3M,
Millennium, NASA JPL, and the World Bank.
In 2002 NASA JPL deployed the following systems and services to
enable access to information:
1. Ease access to information through information portals.

Streamline access to NASA’s 4 million Web pages

for the public, scientists, and employees.

Build the framework for distributed use and

publishing processes.

Create taxonomies and metadata standards for

easier operability.

2. Create collaborative environments for missions.

Create access to tools and training for virtual

teams.

Create a “quick start” team virtual environment.

3. Capture design knowledge.

Create a service and tools to capture in-process

design decisions for use on current and future
missions.

In addition, NASA’s technical questions database helps employees

find answers in an electronic format. It features answers to questions
asked at periodic technical reviews and helps to create virtual
access to the documented thinking of experts. The database
includes more than 700 questions in 42 subject areas.

NASA JPL also provides access to expertise by integrating

distributed directories within the agency and with partners. It is
constantly enhancing its ability to capture knowledge by collecting
best practices for managing risk, encouraging employees to share
successes and failures, and creating a virtual presence of key staff
at reviews through its technical questions database.
Millennium’s content management system and intranet tool delivers
tools and processes that help employees find and use internal
documents and databases. Millennium’s goal with regard to
knowledge and innovation is to build the best R&D information and
knowledge platform in the industry with a specific focus on
knowledge management, target validation, “cheminformatics,” and
drug development.

Millennium defines a knowledge base as all related, accumulated

information and knowledge and organizational experience, or the
sum total of what is available to the organization for decision making.
Some of these knowledge bases include: biological pathways;
biomarkers and their correlates; disease understanding and
treatment; small molecules; operations; and patients, providers, and
payers.

Millennium faces challenges common to many pharmaceutical

companies. For example, scientists face an explosion of external
information, limited visibility to other scientist’s findings, and difficulty
in pulling together information that is scattered across multiple
sources. MyBiology—a database that enables scientists to capture,
share, and reuse scientific findings—is an attempt within Millennium
to deliver a coherent picture of this information.

Further details on how the partners manage this explosion of

information and content will be addressed in subsequent chapters.

Addressing Structural Barriers

New ideas and solutions can emerge from bridging functions and
disciplines. At Boeing Rocketdyne, the first step to break down
boundaries was to address some of the structural barriers that create
silos. For example, each process was holding on to its discretionary
financial and staff resources. Boeing Rocketdyne now has one
enterprise-level, integrated resource plan with all resources assigned
through one council. The territorial attitudes of functional areas were
also barriers. Boeing Rocketdyne created integrated product teams
and also created a product/process organizational structure to break
down those barriers.

Barriers arise at the outer edges of the organization as well.

Traditionally, Boeing Rocketdyne’s internal culture did not always
recognize the value of the knowledge present in suppliers’ and
customers’ organizations, especially to the total product life cycle.
Educating the internal process organizations and inserting new
collaborative technologies into the culture addressed this issue.
Boeing Rocketdyne executives report that some people understand
the new paradigm and are comfortable with it. Others see little or no
benefit, or perceive the new paradigm as unnecessary risk, and so
are slow to change.

[2 ]2001 NASA Knowledge Management Strategic Plan

Cultural Barriers
The ability to capture and reuse knowledge created in earlier times
and contexts is a key driver for improving the efficiency of the
innovation process for study partners. A consistent finding in
innovation research and in this study is that scientists and engineers
prefer to create rather than reuse. Innovators do not reuse unless
they must. To paraphrase Benjamin Franklin’s adage “necessity is
the mother of invention,” this study found that for all of the partners
that necessity is the mother of reuse.

NASA JPL and Boeing Rocketdyne each report a cultural propensity

to invent over reuse. A research team analyzing innovative projects
at NASA JPL reported:

Conducting scientific experiments on Mars is an activity for

which there is sufficiently little precedence that invention is
necessary. In addition, invention was generally a personal and
professional preference. The scientists and engineers at JPL
joined the organization for the opportunity to invent in their
professional area of expertise, not simply to design space
missions. Thus, for them to reuse others’ knowledge required an
explicit decision not to invent.[3]

Majcjrzak, Cooper, and Neece[4] found that in order for reuse to

occur at NASA JPL during the process of developing an innovative
solution, four factors affect the likelihood that a researcher will use
an untraditional approach based on research in another setting: a
deep understanding of the traditional approaches used in the field to
solve the problem, a personal openness to approaches outside one’s
own domain, strong ties between the person and the source of new
ideas, and the availability of data to suggest the approach had
potential.

The potential user of existing information has to then decide not to

invent, but instead to adapt and reuse. Majcjrzak, Cooper, and
Neece also found that a factor in deciding to reuse rather than invent
one’s own solution is an insurmountable performance gap if the user
of existing information had pursued an invention strategy. The
insurmountable performance gap came in the form of insufficient
time, insufficient money, or insufficient expertise.

Adding to the complexity, organizational subcultures vary in their

norms about reusing technical information and knowledge created by
others and trying to adapt it to a new situation. According to Boeing
Rocketdyne, which is largely organized by product teams, each
product team tends to have a different propensity to reuse based on
whether they are executing, evolving, or expanding the business.
“Executors” are focused on getting the job done and don’t accept
deviations from the standard very easily. “Evolvers” are typically in a
competitive environment that is driven by meeting the minimum
requirements within cost and schedule. If innovation is absolutely
required to get the job done, it is accepted but with a great deal of
oversight and control. “Expanders” are usually most tolerant of idea
generation because they are eager to find a market niche. Individual
ideas are highly encouraged by management and co-workers within
this latter environment.

Study partners are engaged in many activities to set up the

conditions for reuse to occur and to address the challenges that
impede it. One major category is boundary- spanning techniques
including face-to-face opportunities and “orchestrated serendipity.”

[3]Majchrzak, Ann, Lynne P. Cooper, and Olivia E. Neece.

Knowledge Reuse in the Radical Innovation Process at the Jet
Propulsion Laboratory. Research Report, JPL, March 2002.

[4]Majchrzak, Ann, Lynne P. Cooper, and Olivia E. Neece.

Knowledge Reuse in the Radical Innovation Process at the Jet
Propulsion Laboratory. Research Report, JPL, March 2002.
Crossing Boundaries To Share Knowledge
Despite the labels, people and knowledge can’t really be managed.
What can be managed are the processes and environment around
people. Changes can be made to increase the likelihood that
fortunate connections between people, needs, and potential
technology solutions will occur. Below are several different
approaches, from techno-centric content management approaches
to more human-centered, relationship-building strategies, to enable
knowledge to flow and innovation to occur.

3M

Encouraging people to explore different databases is an issue for

3M. According to Barbara Peterson (director of library and
information services), some people will look around out of curiosity,
but much of this exploration of other repositories happens in a need-
to-know fashion.

Half of 3M’s technical staff are in St. Paul, Minn., which makes
collaboration and transfer easier. The bigger challenge for 3M is how
to connect the other half of its technical people who reside outside
the United States. How does the organization enable these
connections when these people are so far away?

Tech Forum annual meetings are usually held face to face. For the
first time at the 2002 Tech Information Exchange, there was a virtual
component to the poster session. Each poster session in the room
was available on computers around the world. Behind the scenes,
3M orchestrates events such as this Tech Forum to increase the
likelihood of these lucky accidents.

Millennium

Millennium is defining the cross-domain knowledge flows that will be

critical to its business strategy. Groups access and contribute to
knowledge bases in definable, but local, ways. This reflects the
needs and perspective of the traditional constituency, but does not
typically meet the needs of other groups who might use the
information if it were more “accessible.” This is one way silos are
created. Millennium sees an opportunity to develop knowledge
bases that support cross-functional access and contribution,
particularly where knowledge flows are seen as strategic. The
organization also wants people to search outside of their narrow
disciplines to find connections between patient needs and potential
molecules.
Nasa Jpl
NASA JPL has deployed collaboration processes, services, and
tools related to document management, electronic archiving, product
data management, enterprise portals, taxonomies, metadata
standards, experts’ directories, Q&A and technical databases, tacit
knowledge elicitation processes, collaborative workspaces, and e-
learning.

The value of searching outside one’s discipline is illustrated by a

story from NASA. One of the ideas a NASA scientist working on the
Mars mission discovered from a broad database search was that the
British Textile industry uses electrometers to measure the
electrostatic properties of various materials. This scientist reused a
technology from the textile industry to develop an instrument for use
on Mars, which is an example of the value of a broad search outside
of the normal domain.

The World Bank

In the World Bank, multidisciplinary teams must work together to

achieve common development goals and objectives. To support this,
in 2000 the World Bank established a multiple-sector team learning
program to help World Bank teams access complex cross-
disciplinary knowledge for themselves and clients and use that
knowledge to address key challenges, such as HIV/AIDS. The focus
is to improve both team accomplishment (immediate performance)
and mastery (performance over time). The multiple-sector learning
program started with 30 teams in all the regions in fiscal year 2002
and plans to expand double in fiscal year 2003 and eventually
expand to 1,000 teams.

Multiple-sector learning helps operational teams to fight poverty by

transforming the way they work and learn together. Knowledge
packs are key to this effort. The knowledge packs provide users with
quick access to country-specific cases of indigenous/traditional
practices, in-country sources of knowledge, and World Bank-sup-
ported projects related to indigenous knowledge issues.

However, knowledge packs alone are not enough. Teams also need
process and administrative knowledge, combined with behavioral
skills, in order to successfully achieve their goals.

The World Bank provides online support and help desk support to all
operational teams. Innovation in these teams occurs continuously
from the formation of the team onward. The teams focus on learning
before, during, and after projects and use project milestones and
After-Action Reviews to capture lessons and feed them back into the
process.
Face-To-Face Opportunities
Technology and databases are necessary but not sufficient for real
knowledge to flow or be created. Like 3M, NASA JPL and Millennium
both actively sponsor internal workshops and symposia that feature
face-to-face meetings for teams that usually work virtually. Such
meetings give employees a chance to interact on a more personal
level, compared to virtual meetings and e-mail.

Other examples of collaboration include hosting story telling

sessions, lessons learned meetings, instructional meetings, and
other activities across projects and centers. (See Chapter 5 for more
details). These collaboration opportunities exist specifically to bring
employees together to share information in an informal, face-to- face
environment.

Millennium

Millennium has created a formal scientific findings capture process to

feed the databases. The process begins with face-to-face meetings.
Since May of 2002, Millennium has held about six to eight formal
scientific findings meetings per week. The KM group retrieves the
presentation from a scientist and then encodes the presentations
into a document management system. The presenting scientist
approves the findings before they are published in the databases.
Nasa Jpl
Through its Knowledge Sharing Initiative, NASA’s Academy of
Program and Project Leadership supports best-practice communities
and grassroots knowledge- sharing efforts across the agency. The
initiative worked with centers to identify leading managers to share
project-related stories in a series of workshops. Once or twice a
year, the Knowledge Sharing Initiative brought a group of such
managers from all over NASA to meet one another. According to
Edward Hoffman, head of the academy, Academy of Program and
Project Leadership is crucial to NASA’s efforts to capture and share
expertise that is impossible to capture for databases.
Orchestrated Serendipity
Another approach to boundary spanning one might term
“orchestrated serendipity.” The study partners are not loosely
structured chaotic organizations, where people can bump into others
like molecules in Brownian motion and spin out new products.
Accidental encounters that lead to innovation become legendary in
3M, but they are rare. At 3M there is a tendency to believe that
collaboration leading to innovation “just happens,” when in fact the
organization goes to great lengths to ensure that people are quite
likely to “bump” into each other, virtually and literally.

3M

In the case of 3M, there are formal mechanisms and informal norms,
such as the Technical Forum (communities of practice organized
around technical domains) and the Annual Tech Forum, where
communities and their members can come together to see the work
that is being done and look for ideas and allies, as well as discovery
and genesis grants (discussed in more detail in Chapter 4).

3M uses staff rotation as another mechanism to promote cross

fertilization. There is mobility around the company, and international
assignments are available, especially for high-potential individuals.
Historically, job rotation has been rather haphazard, but HR plans to
put more structure around it.
Aligning Messages, Rewards, and
Recognition
No discussion of creating a knowledge-sharing culture would be
complete with- out addressing the role of senior management
communications and rewards and recognition. The messages sent
by an organization’s leaders influence how organization members
view the relationship between innovation and knowledge and the role
they are expected to play in that process. Rewards and recognition
also send a powerful signal. Ideally, the two are aligned.

Aligning the Message 3M

3M’s leaders have consistently espoused the value of innovation

throughout its history and sometimes link it to knowledge.

Innovation is the transformation of knowledge into money.

—Geoff Nicholson, retired vice president, International Technical
Operations

Innovation is the key to growth because it delights our

customers and it’s the basis for long-lasting customer loyalty.
—Lou Lehr, retired chairman and CEO

Entrepreneurship is in the water at 3M.

—Steve Webster, vice president, R&D

But proclamations are not enough. 3M takes other actions,

especially in the R&D arena, to ensure people see the value of
sharing what they know in the interests of innovation.

Boeing Rocketdyne

Within Boeing Rocketdyne’s process organizations, leadership holds

responsibility for coordinating and communicating the importance of
knowledge and knowledge sharing in innovation. This is
accomplished through formal internal communications backed with
actions, such as willingness to invest money in KM and the explicit
inclusion of KM in strategies. Also, leadership has the responsibility
of communicating the need for sharing knowledge and actively
participating in knowledge sharing through meetings.

Millennium

From its founding, Millennium’s leadership has continually stressed

that its use of knowledge will drive innovation and moved the
company from being primarily a research-based organization to an
innovative, technology-driven, and product-based organization.
Using knowledge is a key theme in management communications
about how to be more efficiently innovative. To reinforce this
message, the roll-out of KM projects to support better and faster
decision making has been accompanied by specific communication
strategies to the stakeholders and those who must use the new
tools.

The World Bank

In 1996 the World Bank’s president, James Wolfenson, declared the

World Bank would move from a pure financial lending institution to a
knowledge bank, where both money and guidance are provided to
client countries as equally valuable assets. Critical success factors
include leadership with vision, effective change agents, established
communication strategies, and executive support.

Aligning Rewards and Recognition 3M

One of 3M’s criteria for promotion in the R&D arena is knowledge

sharing, demonstrated by participation and leadership in the Tech
Forum, writing and publication, speeches, and mentoring.
Knowledge sharing and creation is a promotion criterion at more
senior technical levels. Successful project leadership includes
knowledge-managing behaviors such as early recognition that an
idea will not work and shutting down the project, establishing lessons
learned, and increasing 3M’s knowledge base for future innovation.
In another example, 3M’s Tech Center employees are evaluated by
how many divisions they persuade to adapt a technology platform
into products (knowledge transfer from the laboratory to the
business).

The World Bank

The World Bank’s annual performance reviews now include

knowledge sharing and learning as one of four key behaviors for all
staff and managers. The World Bank promotes the idea that
knowledge and innovation are a competency and a highly desired
activity.

The World Bank also uses formal and informal incentives to foster
and support knowledge sharing within the organization. One
example of a formal incentive is the President’s Award for Excellence
program. This program nominates two to three teams annually who
have excelled in knowledge sharing. Additionally, the innovation and
development marketplaces reward outstanding creativity (of both
staff and other organizations) in addressing poverty.

To inspire innovation and a knowledge-sharing culture, the World

Bank holds programs such as knowledge fairs, which are learning
events to communicate about and encourage the spreading of
knowledge. One fair, called the Development Marketplace, provides
a venue to seek new ways of addressing poverty. It involves a
competition, initially between staff and now open worldwide for any
individual or organization, to develop new ways to fight poverty. In
2002 the competition resulted in 2,400 entries with 204 finalists, and
more than 40 of the suggested programs were funded.

To Pay or Not to Pay?

The study partners differ quite substantially on their philosophies of
whether or not to explicitly pay for innovation and how that impacts
the willingness of staff to share knowledge.

3M

Because 3M believes that some reward and recognition systems can

actually impede innovation and knowledge sharing, it has a
developed a recognition and award system that relies primary on
peer recognition. 3M avoids paying people for ideas because it leads
to hoarding of new ideas and impedes collaboration that can
transform an idea or technology into a viable product that profitably
solves a market need. None of 3M’s rewards have a direct monetary
component. (It does not even pay for patents.)

In 3M, people share ideas partly for peer recognition. Through this
recognition, people receive non-monetary rewards such as the
Technical Circle of Excellence award, which is a corporate award.
Winners receive a trip to the 3M resort retreat center in northern
Minnesota. And some specific recognition programs have
information sharing and peer recognition built into them. For
technical promotions, the ability of somebody to work with others
inside and outside their laboratory is very much a part of the
promotion criteria, especially at the higher levels.

Boeing Rocketdyne

In Boeing Rocketdyne, rewarding innovative problem solvers has led

to problems in recognizing and rewarding the people whose work
has high first run successes. There is a growing awareness that
programs that serve to recognize individual achievements, or place
blame on individuals, serve to undermine cooperation. As
cooperation is undermined, so too will be knowledge sharing.
Instead, knowledge is treated as power and hoarded.
Boeing Rocketdyne has several rewards and recognition programs
for its staff for innovation including the Leading Edge award, the
Pillar award, and the Engineer of the Year award. There is also a
Technical Fellow program in which consistent excellence is
rewarded. If the innovation is large enough, the individual could also
be promoted.

There is also a small but growing appreciation in Boeing Rocketdyne

that attempting to motivate employees to be innovative can
sometimes be a counter- productive strategy. The growing belief is
that innovation follows naturally from employees’ intrinsic motivation
and that a reliance on external motivation can well serve to stifle
cooperation.
Nasa Jpl
At the time of the study, NASA JPL did pay for innovation, but a team
was investigating alternative reward systems. Contributors to new
technology reports are eligible for several NASA JPL invention and
contribution board awards. Because of the complexity (both technical
and political) of NASA’s work, collaboration is required for most
teams and missions. Specific rewards for collaboration include
monetary rewards for new patents and successful transfer of
technologies to industry. The following list is an example of these
rewards:
1. Tech briefs ($350) for publication in Tech Brief Magazine,

2. Space act awards (up to $100,000),

3. NASA patent awards ($500/$1,000),

4. NASA software of the year (up to $100,000), and

5. software available for public release awards ($500/$1,000).

In the fiscal year 2002 there were 163 awards for publication in Tech
Brief Magazine for a total of $57,000, 33 awards for making software
available for public/customer release for a total of $16,500, and 63
space act awards for a total of $300,000.
Time For Reflection and Creativity
People sometimes have the illusion that they work best under
pressure. Like the illusion of someone under the influence of drugs
(in this case adrenaline), a person may feel like he/she is being
productive, but research results would not necessarily support that
perception. A research team studied 9,000 journal entries from
people working on projects requiring high levels of creativity and
then measured their ability to be inventive under various levels of
time pressure. The study found that high-pressure days full of focus
did promote creativity. Days in which there was great time pressure
but people were pulled in many directions or when the goal was not
clear, involved far less creativity[5].

The study partners provide some time for reflection and untraditional
work to encourage creativity.

3M

One of the more famous of 3M’s traditions is the 15 percent rule,

which is a norm where any person in a laboratory may spend 15
percent of his or her time on any idea that could be a possible
business for 3M. And, although this time is not tracked, the rule is so
embedded in the culture that everyone understands that it really a
symbolic concept that represents the freedom and encouragement to
generate and develop new ideas, rather than an entitlement of time.

3M managers and technical directors are instructed to respect the

concept and push the ideas through to development when brought
before them. Additionally, the company has two programs that
support innovation with small grants. Both of these programs
represent a second chance at funding for a project if an idea is not
origi- nally approved for development. The two programs represent
approximately $1 mil- lion out of the total $1.1 billion budget for R&D.
Boeing Rocketdyne

Boeing Rocketdyne balances the need for productivity and efficiency

with time for innovation by setting time aside upfront in the planning
stages of projects to accommodate information sharing, reflection on
lessons learned, and innovation and efficiency improvements. But for
most people, the allocated time for innovation is very small. Boeing
Rocketdyne uses discretionary funding to pursue innovative ideas,
but it is not as structured as 3M (see Chapter 3).

NASA JPL

In the 1990s, with the advent of faster-better-cheaper as the way

NASA would work, JPL projects jumped from four to 40 within five
years. As one result, experienced staff were at a premium, with only
a few senior employees responsible for the most critical projects,
leaving the others to less experienced staff. Senior staff worked
double shifts, and there was little time for mentoring or risk oversight.
Access to people with knowledge was at a premium, yet there were
not enough to go around. NASA staff believe that many of the
problems encountered with NASA missions during that era were the
result of little time to learn or share, and mistakes that could have
been avoided were not.

[5]Amabile, Teresa, Constance N. Hadley, and Steven J. Kramer.

“Creativity Under the Gun.” Harvard Business Review. August 2002.
Creating A Knowledge-Sharing Culture
APQC has found that trying to change the culture before
implementing a KM initiative doesn’t work. What works better is to
design an initial KM strategy and approaches that are consistent with
the mission of the organization and acceptable to the current culture.
Then, let the experience of learning, sharing, and collaboration
transform the culture. The study partners have made conscious
attempts to capitalize on their cultures and traditions of innovation, if
they existed, and then foster one more receptive to knowledge
sharing.

They have had to address challenges to create a climate for

innovation and knowledge sharing. For the study partners, some of
the challenges are structural boundaries or are endemic to scientific
and technical settings, such as the massive amounts of information
that must be managed. Cultural challenges such as a bias to invent
instead of reuse and the smaller cultures created by functions,
disciplines, and teams can be more complex.

To ensure practices and knowledge not only transfer, but also

transfer effectively and make a difference, organizations must
connect people who can and are willing to share their deep, tacit
knowledge. This is achieved through connecting people from
divergent disciplines, both by providing face-to-face opportunities to
dialogue and by providing significant content management and
information technology to enable access to information created in all
disciplines.

APQC has found in all its research on the cultural aspects of

managing knowledge that an organization cannot expect people to
change the way they work without providing a reason to do so.
Demanding that the culture change to support KM usually does not
work. Instead, APQC has found that in a knowledge-friendly culture,
several principles typically exist.
There are specific actions taken to break down the physical
and paradigm barriers among groups.

Employees see the connection between sharing knowledge

and the larger organizational purpose.

Employees see the connection between better knowledge

flows and their personal ability to accomplish their work
mission and personal goals.

Knowledge sharing is tightly linked to the core cultural values

of the organization.

There is strong management and peer pressure for people to

collaborate and share.

The rewards and recognition system is aligned with sharing

knowledge.
Conclusion
People’s behavior, and hence culture, will change when a reason
exists to do so, the consequences are positive, and tools are readily
available.

The next chapter will address the successful approaches used by

the study partners to identify specific innovation needs—the reasons
for knowledge sharing to take place in pursuit of innovation—and
nurture the ideas that can fuel an innovation.
Chapter 3: Identifying the Need
The first step in the KeLI model is identifying the need. The study
partners cite several needs driving the use of KM for innovation. A
variety of techniques to capture the voice of the customer are used
to help define, focus, and validate new product development and
innovation needs. First, through focus groups, surveys, and one-on-
one interviews, study partners develop a relationship and solicit
customer feedback in order to align future products with current
customer needs. Second, many organizations are faced with an
aging work force and are trying to document, organize, and transfer
the existing knowledge so that it is not lost. Third, most organizations
face marketplace pressures, but those who rely on innovation and
the development of new products to stay ahead feel more pressure
than most. Additional needs include reducing the time-to-market,
protecting intellectual capital, sustaining a pipeline of new product
ideas, and capping development costs.

Organizations are realizing the critical role that knowledge

management plays in innovation. This chapter will address each of
these needs for innovation.
Voice Of The Customer
The voice of the customer is seen as a primary driver of innovation
and knowledge sharing by the study partners. They bring widely
disparate sources of knowledge to bear on a problem, project, or
product innovation.

Customer input is important in new product development. This point

is supported by APQC’s 2003 Best-Practice Report Improving New
Product Development Performance and Practices, which found:

the identification of customers’ or users’ real or unarticulated

needs and their problems is considered fundamental to
capturing the voice of the customer research and should be
a key input to product design;

working with highly innovative users or customers is another

tool employed by customer feedback researchers; and

the customer or user should be an integral part of the

development process. “Spiral development” or a series of
“build and test” iterations is useful (e.g., rapid prototypes and
tests or exposing customers to early prototypes).

The study partners use a series of “build and test” iterations all the
way through the development stage and work to integrate the
customer feedback. The identification of customer needs is a strong
best practice and, of course, essential in defining new products.

3M

With 40 business units making 60,000 products, 3M attempts to build

businesses by satisfying customer needs with innovative products.
Many of 3M’s most famous innovation stories include the scientists’
direct relationships with their customers by identifying customer
needs, sometimes before the customer recognizes the needs
themselves, and by developing appropriate new products. The first
step in 3M’s innovation process is connecting a customer need and
a technology to fill that need; consequently, 3M employees want to
spend more time with customers. 3M encourages its scientists to
connect with customers’ needs by, for example, encouraging
scientists to join marketing employees on their customer visits.

Because of its size, structure, and diversified nature, 3M can be a

confusing place for its customers. It used to be that customers would
think of 3M as 50 smaller companies under one corporate umbrella.
The organization now finds that many of its customers want 3M to
operate with a single face. As a result, 3M is finding many ways it
can better leverage skills and capabilities in the smaller companies
by trying to work more effectively together. This is one of the drivers
for sharing customer knowledge within the company.

3M is beginning to deploy Design for Six Sigma throughout the

company. The voice of the customer will be more systematically
obtained through this process.

Millennium

George Merck, founder of Merck and Company, once said, “Think of

the patient first, then ask what can cure their pain or problem. Profits
will follow.” Customer and market feedback at Millennium is a major
focus of its innovation and new product development philosophy.
Millennium actively looks for opportunities to solicit feedback from its
customers and patients and integrates feedback from patients into
strategies and decision making. During a typical feedback session,
patients talk with Millennium in one-on-one or group interviews. The
information gleaned from this process allows Millennium to adjust to
the needs of its patients as well as the market.

The World Bank

The nature of the work performed by the World Bank demands the
involvement of its customers and partners. For example, a team in
Africa, supported by the World Bank’s innovation marketplace,
launched the Indigenous Knowledge for Development Initiative to
integrate client knowledge into the development process. The team
leader for a Uganda agricultural project learned about the initiative
and partnered with the Uganda National Agricultural Research
Organization to redesign the project in ways that would identify,
document, validate, and eventually use indigenous knowledge in
agricultural research and extension. He also received funds from the
initiative to identify potential uses of indigenous knowledge in the
project. This spurred interest among other civil society groups in
Uganda. Responding to a request from the Council for Science and
Technology, the initiative provided seed money to establish a future
indigenous knowledge center and prepare for a national workshop to
develop a road map for a national indigenous knowledge strategy.
Demographics and Knowledge Loss
Knowledge loss due to attrition is also a driver of knowledge-sharing
processes for innovation noted by the study partners. Knowledge
management practices keep years of knowledge from leaving in
situations such as an aging work force. 3M, Boeing Rocketdyne,
NASA JPL, and Millennium are facing the loss of senior researchers
and scientists, whose contributions have given their respective
organizations a reputation for innovation. Although some would
argue that the loss of senior researchers and scientists is good for
innovation in order to bring about fresh thoughts and new blood,
best-practice organizations note that it is crucial to capture the tacit
knowledge of internal experts who contain deep knowledge of the
market and organizational capabilities.

NASA JPL

Almost 40 percent of NASA’s science and engineering work force is

currently eligible for retirement. By 2006 half of NASA’s entire work
force will be eligible. Many of these people are the most experienced
project managers, who are the people who worked on Apollo and
built the first space shuttle. Yet, it has few programs designed to
bring their wisdom into institutional memory.

Since the 1990s, the budgets on missions have been radically

reduced, missions have multiplied ten-fold, and scientists and
engineers have been pushed to the limits. NASA as a whole, and
JPL in particular, has struggled to find the right balance between
mission performance and cutting-edge space exploration. With some
of the most experienced scientists and engineers poised to leave in
the coming years, these issues have the potential to become even
more severe with an imbalance skill mix.

By the end of this decade, many of the most experienced

scientists and engineers at NASA and JPL are going to retire. If
we don’t have systems in place to retain more of what they
know, our institution is going to suffer.
—Jeanne Holm, chief knowledge architect for NASA
Marketplace Pressures
Another driver of innovation and knowledge sharing is marketplace
pressure and competition. Customers are increasingly demanding
that organizations move away from a product orientation and move
toward providing a complete solution. Organizations strive to
produce faster, better, and cheaper solutions. Knowledge- sharing
activities can lead organizations to the market faster, allow them to
better sustain and feed their pipelines, and increase ways to
decrease development costs.

Millennium

Millennium is in a constant race with competition to be the first to

market with new drug discoveries. To develop a drug takes, on
average, 14 years and costs $880 million for Millennium. Costs and
competition will continue to increase as Millennium incorporates new
technologies. It is planning for an increased number of targets, a
higher percentage of unprecedented targets, and new technologies
that will require significant capital. Other challenges that Millennium
faces include reduced research and development productivity,
reliance on blockbuster drugs, and increased therapeutic
competition. It is quickly becoming more expensive to develop fewer
products.

MECHANISMS FOR IDEATION

How do organizations come up with ideas and identify needs? The

study partners purposefully make time for individual and team idea
generation. This is evident through a variety of programs such as
3M’s 15 percent rule and genesis and discovery programs. These
programs are designed to give employees and teams an opportunity
to make innovation contributions.

3M
All of 3M’s hero stories originated with individual ideas, and the
company goes to great pains to encourage them to continue. 3M
uses three key programs to help generate new ideas. The 15
percent rule, the 2X/3X challenge, the Genesis program, and the
Discovery program are all designed to give employees freedom to
come up with new product ideas. The 15 percent rule is a long-
standing norm where any person in a laboratory may spend 15
percent of his or her time on any idea that could produce a new
product or new business. This rule is a tradition within the company
and is so embedded in the culture that all employees understand
that it represents the freedom and encouragement to generate and
develop new ideas. In support of the 15 percent rule, managers and
technical directors are instructed to respect the concept and push
the ideas through to development when brought before them.

In addition to the 15 percent rule, Jim McNerney, 3M’s chairman and

CEO, presented the company with a 2X/3X challenge. McNerney
wants to see two times the number of ideas at the front end of the
new product development process and three times the number of
resulting winners from the back end.

3M has two additional programs that support innovation with small

grants. The Genesis program involves an annual review of idea
proposals generated from the 15 percent rule. If the idea is selected,
the Genesis program allows the inventing scientist to receive a grant
worth $40,000 to $150,000. And the Discovery program is a
continuous process that involves granting seed money to scientists
throughout the year to develop an idea and present it before a peer
review committee. Both of these programs represent a second
chance at funding for a project that was not originally approved for
development. These two programs represent approximately $1
million out of the total $1.1 billion budget for research and
development.
Conclusion
Organizational needs can arise spontaneously, like in the case of
customer feedback or competitive challenges. Organizational needs
can also be identified in advance of market demands, like in the case
of allocating time and dedicating work to innovation. Whatever the
source, most organizations form a team to develop the concept or
solution once a need or opportunity has been identified. The next
step in the process is to for the team with the right people and
knowledge and provide them access to the right information and
expertise.
Chapter 4: Forming the Team
Overview
After a relevant need has been recognized, the next logical step is to
form a team to tackle the problem and formulate a solution. To move
from identifying a need to forming a team an organization has
processes in place that closely resemble a new product development
cycle. Needs are realized, analyzed, and prioritized before action is
taken to form a team. Once a need is determined to be strong
enough to take action, resources and cost are funneled in the
direction of team formation.

This chapter will discuss the importance of forming a team and team
chartering and will look at different types of teams (e.g., cross-
functional teams, diverse virtual teams, and a mixture of cross
functional and virtual) used by the study partners for different
problems.

Study partners are more inclined to use teams to foster knowledge

sharing and innovation. Almost 86 percent of study partners use
teams to foster knowledge sharing and innovation.

Study partners prepare individual employees for team-based work

and use KM and corresponding tools to arm them with the latest and
greatest job-related information. This chapter will also discuss the
impact of training and learning functions, the emergence of expertise
location, and the importance of access to relevant communities.
Creating and Managing Diverse Teams
Sometimes the sudden realization that signals a creative thought
sparks within a single, prepared mind. Alexander Fleming was
sorting plates of an apparently failed experiment with staphylococci
cultures when he spotted an unusual mold inhibiting culture growth.
And penicillin was conceived. More frequently, however, creative
ideas occur at the intersection of different disciplines or experience
bases, even in science. In business settings, the creative impetus for
innovation is rarely the brainchild of a single individual. Rather,
innovation emerges through an interactive creative process among
people whose original contributions derive from their diverse life
training and experiences. Very homogenous groups are subject to
“groupthink,” which is the tendency to converge easily on solutions
or proposals, because everyone’s thought processes are similar. KM
contributes to innovation to the extent that teams wishing to innovate
are exposed to different knowledge bases, different modes of
analysis, and stimuli from outside experiences.

What the Individual Brings to the Team

The study partners are using a myriad of training functions to bring

employees to desired levels of knowledge-sharing capability. They
are using mentoring, e-learning, and action learning, as well as
focusing on professional development and hiring people with
knowledge sharing and innovation competencies. They understand
the important role that training and learning plays in the preparation
of team member inputs to teamwork and the work environment.

Study partners are inclined to use training initiatives to foster

knowledge sharing and innovation. Almost 72 percent of partner
organizations use training initiatives to foster knowledge sharing and
innovation. This suggests that partners understand the value of
taking advantage of training and learning opportunities as part of
their people development strategies.
NASA JPL

NASA JPL leverages learning and training functions to support

knowledge sharing and innovation including mentoring, coaching,
and e-learning. Its academy of program and project leadership hosts
classes, team-targeted training, just-in-time online learning, and a
community of practice for project managers. To date, NASA JPL has
implemented an e-learning effort for 18,000 employees and is
currently in the process of expanding its program to bring more
diverse internal and external offerings to the work force.

The KM program at the Kennedy Space Center focuses its training

efforts on the management of core competencies, the ability of
employees to attain key skills on the job, and capturing key
knowledge in explicit forms.

The World Bank

The mission of the World Bank’s global development learning

network is to improve development by using distance learning to
train development decision makers. The aim of the network is to use
information technologies to offer content from a wide range of
sources and reach a critical mass of participants to bring about
change.

The participants are usually a mix of decision makers in government,

nongovernmental organizations, academia, civil society, private
enterprise, and international agencies. The network allows
participants to learn in their home environments by providing a cost-
effective alternative to face-to-face learning. It uses a mix of
technologies, including satellite communications, videoconferencing,
e-mail, the Internet, CD-ROMs, videos, and telephone conferencing.
The network is a growing partnership, with 29 distance learning
centers and distance learning networks of approximately 20,000
participants.
Figure 2 offers a closer look at the specific learning and training
functions employed by study partners and sponsors. Mentoring, on-
the-job training, and e-learning are used heavily by partners,
whereas coaching is not used as extensively.

Figure 2: Learning and Training Functions Used to Support

Knowledge Sharing and Innovation

Professional Development
Nasa JPL

NASA JPL’s Academy of Program and Project

Leadership program provides professional development to teams

and individuals through performance support, knowledge sharing,
courses, career development, university partnerships, and advanced
technology tools. Since 1997, many of NASA’s more experienced
practitioners have left in a time that the number of projects has
increased. As a result, a younger and less experienced work force is
\increasingly in charge of more complex projects. This fact is the
catalyst for a need for increased mentoring, support, and
development. The academy program facilitates the transfer of this
knowledge and helps to develop future NASA project leaders.

The program’s five operational areas of expertise are:

 1. the project management development process,

2. training courses,

3. project team performance support,

4. online project management tools, and

5. benchmarking and research.

New-hire Orientation

The study partners are actively looking for qualities of knowledge

sharing and innovation when recruiting new hires. By doing so, they
hope to realize the benefits of saved time and money through
increased productivity and adherence to KM objectives and
innovation initiatives. Almost 86 percent of partner organizations
actively recruit with knowledge-sharing skills in mind. Because
knowledge sharing is so much a part of the way they work, it is
preferable to have people with developed knowledge-sharing skill
sets than to have to train and assimilate them. Also, almost 72
percent of study partners actively recruit new hires based on
innovation skills.

The disparity could be due to the fact that the study partners have a
more highly-developed innovation focus than the study sponsors
and, as a result, have a greater need for these skills and attributes.

3M

3M looks for certain traits and characteristics in prospective

employees, and the human resource department developed a
handbook for its recruiters and hiring managers to use while
recruiting. 3M’s desired traits include being creative, having broad
interests, problem solving, resourcefulness, being motivated and
energized, and having a strong work ethic. The company is
implementing an evaluation and development program focused on
the following six leadership attributes:
1. charts the course,

2. raises the bar,

3. energizes others,

4. resourcefully innovates,

5. lives 3M values, and

6. delivers results.

3M considers these six leadership attributes, together with its three

global competency knowledge factors (i.e., corporate knowledge,
business acumen, and functional expertise), to be its overall
leadership model.

3M’s recruiting strategies include long-term relationships with key

universities and their key departments and faculty. 3M believes
major opportunities exist in developing relationships with faculty
members and graduate students, and many university students
intern at 3M and gain critical exposure to its culture, people, and
processes. This recruiting strategy allows both 3M and the intern to
test the water to see if a future relationship is viable. 3M also
leverages applied research funding for recruiting and leverages other
university programs and services such as the placement office. Early
identification, assessment, and socialization to the 3M’s culture is
key for future relationships and long-term employment.
Expertise Location
Expert locators are becoming an important tool to find
knowledgeable people within the organization. A pervasive challenge
is that organizations are increasingly divided by product line,
process, and location. In this situation, novice employees on critical
assignments cannot find helpful information within their own groups
and informal networks. Expert locators provide access to people that
have organizational knowledge and specific job and task knowledge.

There are risks related to expert locators. In some cases, legal

issues confine information sharing in HR systems, and contractors
have access to internal systems and sensitive and competitive
information. These contractors could potentially provide information
to parties outside of the organization.

3M

As a part of its library information services function, 3M has several

internally developed knowledge repositories and systems. One is the
technical skills database, which is used primarily for research and
development knowledge. The 3M technical skills database connects
3M employees on a global scale and allows users to search the self-
described skills of 3M tech forum members. The technical skills
database is considered confidential, and all 3M tech forum members
are encouraged to submit their skills into this database. It allows a
person to build his or her personal network or identify fellow
technical society members. The database is available through the
Internet or Lotus Notes and is updated daily based on corporate
records. Each profile asks for an area of expertise, current or
significant experience, and vocational interests.

Each individual record in 3M’s technical skills database contains an

“ask this expert” button, which generates an e-mail form that can be
sent directly to the expert in question. Library information services
tracks the use of this button to determine how well the system works.
Feedback thus far indicates that employees are using this tool quite
heavily. In fact, they are using this tool/resource more than the
technical report database.

The library information services function does not have a vetting

process for the skills database. However, within the tech forum, a fair
amount of peer pressure, in combination with the collegiality and
sense of community, serves as its own vetting process.

NASA JPL

NASA JPL provides access to expertise by integrating distributed

directories within the agency and with partners. It collects best
practices for managing risk, encourages sharing of successes and
failures, and creates a virtual presence of key staff at reviews
through its technical questions database.
Access To Relevant Communities Of Practice
Teams and team members have certain common traits, and best-
practice organizations exploit this whenever given the opportunity
because they know it leads to more ideas and better knowledge
sharing. Communities of interest or communities of practice are one
way to organize knowledge and content around an employee’s
interest.

The World Bank

The World Bank’s thematic groups provide some of its greatest

innovations in its products and services due to the fact that group
members work directly with World Bank partners and individuals in
the regions to solve development issues. Thematic groups, also
known as communities of practice, are groups of people who are
passionate about a common subject. They are mostly front-line staff
and work in the regions and networks. Leadership and membership
in any thematic group is voluntary and open to all staff. The groups
also have external partners, and knowledge sharing becomes
seamless across the group through the e-mail distribution lists and
Web sites.

Thematic group products, services, and activities include the

production of knowledge collections (e.g., good practices and sector
statistics), dissemination and outreach to staff and partners (e.g.,
brown bag lunches, clinics, workshops, study tours, Web sites, and
newsletters), and support to task teams, thus enabling the staff to
apply and adapt the global knowledge to the local situation.
Enabling Cross-Functional Work
Many new products and services are systems rather than a stand-
alone innovation and require a fusion of disciplines. Moreover, in the
past two decades, development groups have learned the limitations
of an “over the wall” process of innovation, in which a new product
was handed off sequentially from design to production and on to
sales. When development managers understand the benefits of
bringing diverse perspectives to bear on the upfront design of new
goods, services, and production processes, the result is faster
decision making, fewer design errors, and better after-sales service,
among other benefits. However, as in the case of virtual teams,
communication among team members is often the determining
factor. That is, development work depends upon the ability of team
members to transfer and share knowledge rapidly and accurately.
The diverse perspectives of cross-functional team members enrich
the work and enhance the probability of innovative thinking, but
diversity challenges communication. Therefore, managers have to
design knowledge repositories and flows that are both physically and
psychologically accessible to a wide variety of users and at the same
time are tightly focused on shared business goals.

Millennium

Millennium’s approach and business model is firmly grounded in KM

and innovation. Leveraging its strengths, the approach calls for an
integrated and comprehensive industrialized platform with a process
approach (i.e., focus on cost, quality, and cycle time). Millennium
also relies heavily on productivity modeling to evaluate pipeline
measures, probabilities of success, and the success rate of hitting
targets.

Fundamental to Millennium’s ability to revolutionize the drug

discovery process is its integrated Gene 2 Patient (G2P) Process,
which starts with a gene or target identification and integrates
processes, tools, technologies, and people that enable the discovery
and development process to become more efficient. This is achieved
through large-scale KM efforts where information is continuously
shared up and down the process through feedback loops. Millennium
takes this information and focuses on the major bottlenecks in the
process (e.g., target validation, preliminary clinical trials, and clinical
development). Through this process, Millennium has been able to
target areas that are responsible for almost 50 percent of drug
failures.

The focus on KM is central to Millennium’s strategy. A knowledge

base is a construct that goes beyond database or document
repository; it brings expertise, relationships, decision making, and
history into the picture as well. Millennium’s knowledge base exists
in its people, its systems, and its processes. So Millennium defines a
knowledge base as the sum total of information that is available to
the organization for decision making. From this existing knowledge,
Millennium has built a unique way to make the different knowledge
bases cross functional. It has created a guide and set of questions to
help people narrow their search for information. For example,
personnel in biology might consult the operations knowledge base to
find out what therapeutic areas have previously worked on a current
and stated target. Millennium’s customers may consult the biology
knowledge base to find out if there are any recent articles written
about the properties of a new drug. And personnel in the drug group
might consult the disease knowledge base to find the trial results for
drugs similar to the one currently under optimization. By looking at
how different groups will need to draw upon and contribute to each
knowledge base, Millennium is building a blueprint for KM
development.

To further help Millennium organize its knowledge and data and

make it available across functions, it has adopted the concept of
views. A view is a construct that describes what users see on their
desktops—a gateway to what is available and relevant. When views
are missing or incomplete, people are unaware of available
resources and often reinvent the wheel or make decisions in
absence of relevant and pertinent information. Millennium believes
that the right views help to reduce the energy and time of
contributing to (as well as accessing) the knowledge bases.

Virtual Teams

Although the term “team” conjures up an image of colleagues who

meet regularly face-to-face, the members of many teams working on
vital projects are geographically scattered. The “forming, storming,
norming” process that all teams go through is greatly complicated by
physical dispersion, which requires even more management
attention. One study of 232 software developers working on 18
virtual teams found that the strongest predictor of project
performance (as judged on a number of criteria by the project
managers) was the degree of organizational support, which referred
to the information, training, and resources available to the team
members[6]. Virtual teams need strong leadership, clearly defined
roles, and a rich communications infrastructure, especially when the
goal is innovation. The study partners understand these needs, and
Boeing Rocketdyne’s SLICE team is an excellent example of how
powerful a virtual team can be.

Boeing Rocketdyne

The Boeing Rocketdyne SLICE team is a radical innovation team

characterized as a virtual collaborative and creative team. The
charge for this team was to drive down the costs of rocket engines
by 100 times, get the engine to market ten times faster, and increase
the useful life by a factor of three. The challenge for the SLICE team
was to do this in ten months while working virtually and part time.
Boeing Rocketdyne gathered world-class experts in respective fields
and formed a cross-functional, cross-organizational, and virtual
team. During the course of the project, no team member spent more
than 15 percent of his/her time on the project.
To establish a framework for success, the sponsoring organizations’
management employed the following management practices to
support a creative, cross-boundary team:

It created a virtual team umbrella agreement prior to the

creative team project. The umbrella agreement did not
restrict any person’s contribution to any subtask.

It refined collaborative technology to fit the team’s needs for

interaction and knowledge management. Collaboration
protocols were created by the team.

It structured work within the team without changing the core

creative needs of the team or their primary job.

Norms were established within the team for communication protocols

that consisted of phone and Web-enabled discussions twice per
week. Methods to capture conversations and decisions and work-in-
progress were also established. The team met twice during the
project, once at a kickoff meeting to meet and greet and learn how to
use the collaboration tool and again at the end for final technical
review and celebration.

The SLICE team identified the core creative needs needed for the
team to be successful.
1. Create a shared understanding; knowledge sharing to
inform others cannot be distinguished from consensus
building in a virtual team.

2. Engage in frequent interaction. Create a common language

and guard against alienation.

3. Rapidly create and discard context-specific knowledge.

A team leader moderated most meetings and helped maintain the

norms and roles involved with the phases and needs of the group.
All were involved throughout the project in sharing and archiving
their knowledge and reviewing the contributions of others. An IT staff
member was assigned full time to assist the team in refining their
collaborative tool and trying to create an evolving taxonomy for
prototypes. Members were recruited for the team and pulled in
based on their expertise. They taught each other a great deal, but
were not involved with the formal training organization.

The World Bank

At the World Bank, there is a growing realization that team

development is complex and interdependent and that participation of
all sectors of society is crucial to its success. Teams must be tightly
connected and work together to achieve common goals and
objectives. In 2000 the World Bank created a learning board to
oversee all learning at the World Bank and moved from single sector
to multiple-sector team learning. The objectives of the multiple-sector
team learning program are to help the World Bank teams build
internal and client capacity to address key multiple-sector
challenges. By helping each team to integrate lessons into its work,
the program enables continuous improvement and innovation.
Supported by the learning board, the multiple-sector team learning
program started with 30 teams in all the regions in fiscal year 2002
and planned to expand to 60 teams in fiscal year 2003.

Innovation in these teams occurs continuously from the formation of

the team onward. The teams focus on learning before, during, and
after projects. Multiple- sector team learning helps by transforming
the way the teams work and learn together. “Knowledge packs”
provide users with quick access to syntheses of country-specific
cases of indigenous/traditional practices, in-country sources of
knowledge, and World Bank-supported projects related to
indigenous knowledge issues.

Preliminary feedback collected from the teams included information

that:
 teams are better integrated around sectors and demonstrate
improved communications;

teams have received technical support from other World

Bank teams, which provides what they might not have
otherwise learned about; and

the World Bank and clients have engaged in a program of

team development that has improved the overall
achievements of project goals.

[6]Leonard, Dorothy, Paul Brands, Amy Edmondson, and Justine

Fenwick. “Virtual Teams: Using Communications Technology to
Manage Geographically Dispersed Development Groups.” Sense &
Respond. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press, 1998.
Conclusion
Identifying a need leads to the formation of a team. The study
partners use different team compositions such as cross-functional
teams and virtual teams to share knowledge to solve problems by
generating viable solutions. The study teams also make a concerted
effort to prepare employees for work within teams through
development programs, targeted hiring, and training programs. Once
the team has been formed and employees are onboard and up-to-
speed, the next step is to enable the individual project and work
processes that take place.
Chapter 5: Enabling Project and Work
Processes
After a team has been formed, the next step in the knowledge-
enabled learning and innovation model is to enable project and work
processes. This chapter will discuss how the study partners enable
project and work processes through knowledge-sharing activities. It
will look at different types of projects and work processes used by
the partner organizations and show how they have realized the
importance of enabling project and work processes by promoting
access to information, content, and people with knowledge.
Discussions will center around the use of technology, collaboration,
and how to access and reuse applicable knowledge.
Technology
Technology is viewed as an enabler by the study partners. Although
they do not completely rely on technology, most have a technology
solution and strategy that makes it easier for employees to find job-
related information. Two common uses of technology highlighted in
this chapter are portals and databases/repositories. Portals are
gateways to help employees quickly find information and provide a
central access point. Like portals, databases and repositories are
also effectively being used to organize company information.

Portal Technology

The study partners use portal technology to help enable more

efficient knowledge sharing and innovation. About two-thirds of the
partners use portal technology.

3M

3M’s research portal, the atlas electronic library, is the research

portal for finding information about 3M and the outside world and is a
product of the library and information services function. The search
feature and the current awareness feature are the two primary
methods for encouraging people to use the library and its knowledge
repositories. The current awareness feature allows a library
information services staff member to set up an ongoing search of
new reports in an area of interest for a 3M employee.

Millennium

Millennium’s Compass is a portal and simple content management

system designed to enable employees to more easily access internal
documents and data sources. Millennium had many options in
choosing a software package, but decided on Compass because of
its simplicity, flexibility, and ability to readily customize. Also,
Compass was currently being used (minimally) at Millennium, and
this further aided in the decision-making process to expand
Compass instead of purchasing another system.

The business problems that initially prompted conversation about a

portal system were that Millennium did not know what information it
had, where it was, how it was accessed, or who was accountable for
it. The bottom-line result was lost time due to inefficiencies, lost
opportunities due to less-than optimal decisions, lost data, redundant
work, and wasted resources.

To implement the Compass project, Millennium laid out a plan that

began in 2000 with three stages of development. In phase one, the
discovery phase, Millennium designed, reviewed, and built the
system. After building content, validating data, and identifying pros
and cons, phase two sought to deploy Compass. Phase three was to
better integrate Compass into Millennium’s intranet, make it more
user-friendly, and decrease maintenance thorugh a catalog.

Millennium’s content within Compass is organized into categories for

context and browsing, and all items may be either searched or
browsed. The system allows all employees to contribute, collaborate,
and find information. Contributors can submit, edit, renew, and delete
their own information by using a simple one-page Web form.

Compass entries contain links to and context for a wide variety of

information resources, including people locators, access instructions,
keywords, and categories. Entries also cover information and data
from around the company for use across departments and within
departments. Resources cataloged include presentations, reports,
processes and procedures, internal and external Web sites, facilities,
journals, and databases. Analysis of searched and browsed content
helps Millennium to continually focus Compass. By counting hits and
looking for heavily searched content, Millennium is better able to
make resources available.
Since its initial deployment, Compass has continued to grow. By
August 2002, 45 percent of Millennium’s departments had Compass
entries, one out of every six employees had contributed content, and
the number of entries and contributions had grown (482 since May of
2001).

Millennium has learned its share of lessons from its work with
Compass and offers an assessment of the system below. The
benefits are that the system:

provides context for information through various views

(department, projects, people, and expertise),

trains users through content collection process,

provides an easy way for content owners to keep content up-

to-date through e-mail notifications,

can index any type of document, system, or process, and

can be customized to directly address Millennium’s

requirements.

The drawbacks are:

context is buried deep in the application,

Compass does not represent a scalable way to train,

Compass needs to allow content owners to define an

appropriate content expiration date,

the system is so abstract that many users don’t understand

its purpose or scope, and

maintenance for the custom application is somewhat

expensive.
Future plans include transitioning Compass onto a commercial
content management application. To successfully do this, Millennium
must first reduce the technical maintenance cost and better integrate
Compass into the technical architecture. Phase one of this
transitions plan is to address challenges while maintaining the
features of the system that work well. Secondary plans are to work
alongside IT to identify promising commercial systems and establish
a timeline for the transition.

NASA JPL

NASA JPL’s portal, Inside JPL, is one of many collaboration tools

that the agency uses to provide information and resources to its
employees. NASA JPL’s portal includes news from NASA corporate,
headline news, news from the aerospace industry, and daily JPL-
specific news. It also includes lab announcements, a JPL events
calendar, links to project libraries, and links to engineering and
science pages.

Content Management Systems

Content management systems are the back-end technology solution

that drives content to the portal interface that employees interact
with. The best-practice organizations in this study have taken steps
to develop taxonomies and metadata that define the types of
information that employees can access. Typically, these taxonomies
are driven by the users and take into account their feedback. Again,
content management applications and portal technologies are not a
solution in itself, but rather a piece of the puzzle to help enable
knowledge creation and sharing for innovation. Almost three-fourths
of the study partners report using a content management system.

Databases and Repositories

The use of databases and repositories is another way that best-

practice organizations are organizing information and making it
available to employees to use for knowledge sharing and innovation.
Examples include 3M’s Lotus Notes database and Millennium’s
MyBiology database and the scientific findings capture process.

3M

At 3M, whenever a new project is started with a team of three or

more people, a Lotus Notes database is set up as a team room and
chat space for storing documents and sharing information. Currently,
thousands of these databases exist. They may be personal,
corporate, or technology-specific. Employees with access to this
database are always two clicks away from learning what others are
doing and what new ideas are in the works.

Although 3M restricts some proprietary databases to specific users,

typically it encourages employees to explore different databases
outside of the one they use most frequently. According to the director
of library and information services, just making the databases
available is crucial. Some employees will look around out of curiosity,
but much of the exploration happens in a need-to-know fashion.
More often than not, necessity, rather than curiosity, leads people
into different databases.

Millennium

Millennium seeks to lead the industry in its ability to leverage

biological knowledge for drug discovery and development and exploit
all available information to build a developing picture of complex
biological systems. In pursuing this, Millennium faces challenges
from the explosion of external information, limited vis- ibility to other
scientist’s findings, and difficulty in pulling together information that is
scattered across multiple sources. MyBiology is a database that
enables scientists to capture, share, and reuse scientific findings.

The goals of MyBiology are to capture findings and interpretations,

store them in a database able to represent the richness of biological
concepts, combine internal and external findings, embed the use of
knowledge bases into scientific practice, and increase the scope of
knowledge integration over time.

The projects captured by MyBiology began with scientists and the

scientific findings capture process. The technologies behind the
scene that drive these products are Millennium databases, Dossier
(a document repository), and Ingenuity (an external, third-party
source of scientific findings).

The first phase of Millennium’s scientific findings capture process is

to attend a formal scientific findings meeting. Since May of 2002,
Millennium has held six to eight meetings per week. The second
phase is to receive or retrieve the presentation from the presenting
scientist. Millennium notes that turnaround is typically one to three
days for this phase. The third phase is to encode the presentations
into Documentum, a document management system. The average
time to complete this task is two hours, and 205 total findings have
resulted by the end of 2002. The fourth phase in the scientific
findings capture process is to contact the presenting scientist for
approval. This step poses a potential bottleneck because it takes an
average of six days for scientists to respond (with a range of 1 day to
43 days). The process is complete when the final encoded
presentation is available in Dossier.

A new project on the horizon is the creation of the target validation

knowledge base, which will capture the Millennium-specific scientific
findings from lab notebooks and provide comprehensive access to
experimental results from core systems, laboratory reagents, core
systems for additional work requests, and scientific findings.

Ingenuity is a knowledge representation system complete with

knowledge bases, knowledge acquisition tools, query language, and
life sciences applications. Ingenuity can model biological knowledge
with technical development and content acquisition. There were
many products available to choose from, but ultimately, Millennium
chose Ingenuity based on its core technology, superiority in industry
knowledge, and the quantity of its literature-based findings. Its public
literature content contains 600,000 findings, 32 journals, and 24,000
recent articles.

The proprietary findings from the Dossier knowledge repository

coupled with information and content from Ingenuity have allowed
Millennium some unique collaboration opportunities. Millennium has
combined these two databases to form one huge, single knowledge
base. This is beneficial because it allows Millennium to perform
computational analysis of integrated complex biological knowledge
for drug discovery. More importantly, it presents Millennium scientists
with integrated views of information derived from disparate sources.

NASA JPL

The technical questions database at NASA JPL is used to help

employees quickly find answers to common problems in an
electronic format. It features the best questions asked at technical
reviews and helps to create a virtual presence when key people are
not available. The database includes more than 700 questions in 42
subject areas.
Collaboration
Study partners use collaboration techniques to enhance information
sharing for innovation purposes. Whether it is through tech forums,
chat rooms, portals, or designated collaboration spaces, the goal is
to bring people together and collaborate to share and create
knowledge. The knowledge management team at NASA JPL looks
for opportunities to increase collaboration to facilitate knowledge
creation, sharing, and innovation. Fostering collaboration is vital to
the success of NASA JPL’s knowledge sharing and innovation
practices, and it utilizes collaborative tools and workspaces to
ensure the ability to quickly capture and share key lessons across
the organizations and geographically distributed teams.

NASA JPL

An example of collaboration at NASA JPL is the sponsored face-to-

face meetings for teams that usually work virtually. This gives
employees a chance to interact on a more personal level. Other
examples of collaboration include hosting story telling sessions,
lessons learned meetings, instructional meetings, and other activities
across projects and centers. These collaboration opportunities exist
specifically to bring employees together to share information in an
informal, face-to-face environment. In addition, JPL has deployed
collaboration processes, services, and tools related to document
management, electronic archiving, product data management,
enterprise portals, taxonomies, metadata standards, experts’
directories, Q&A and technical databases, tacit knowledge elicitation
processes, collaborative workspaces, and e-learning.

Employees are encouraged and motivated to share information and,

because of the technical and political complexity of NASA’s work,
collaboration is required for most teams and missions. Specific
rewards for collaboration include monetary rewards for new patents
and the successful transfer of technologies to industry.
The World Bank

Fostering collaboration and the exchange of tacit and explicit

knowledge and information to support innovation is an explicit
element in the World Bank’s knowledge cycle. The World Bank
shares knowledge both internally and externally through a variety of
activities and programs, such as the development gateway and the
development forum.

The development gateway offers users access to development

information, resources, and tools and provides a space to contribute
knowledge and share experiences. The development gateway helps
users navigate the growing amount of development information
available online and empowers virtual communities of learning to
address key development issues.

The development gateway builds virtual communities, guided by

development experts, around major development topics. In addition,
“development focuses” address current and emerging issues in
development; guides and advisers for a particular subject work with
their communities to highlight the most useful resources available
online. Registered users can submit content on a topic page and
receive e-mail alerts to let them know that new content is available
on a specific topic or focus of their interest.

The development gateway provides simple user interfaces for

numerous functions: sharing knowledge and discussing issues,
registering and profiling users, accessing projects and statistical
databases, joining a topic community, receiving e-mail notifications,
searching, and branding community workspaces.

The development forum is an electronic venue for dialogue and

knowledge sharing among members of the World Bank’s
development community. Its focal point is an ongoing and expanding
series of electronic development dialogues on key issues and
challenges facing the development community and the world’s poor,
with a particular emphasis on learning from the experience of those
who face these challenges in their daily lives. These dialogues are
complemented by other features, including a speaker’s corner, that
provokes discussion and debate on development issues and
resources for those who wish to develop their own online dialogues.

The forum has its roots in the growing recognition by the World Bank
and others in the development community that knowledge and
information are vital tools of sustainable development, that the World
Bank’s clients and other stakeholders from developing countries can
and should be active contributors of high-value information on
development issues, and that focused dialogue can facilitate
cooperation among development agencies and others involved in
development in a way that enhances their effectiveness.

The focal point of the forum is an ongoing series of development

discussions, which vary in content, format, and duration. However,
they all share a common goal: to foster increased dialogue and
knowledge sharing on development issues. Therefore, the dialogues
all have the following things in common:

They are open to the public; anyone interested in the subject

and willing to adhere to the ground rules of the dialogue is
welcome to join.

They are focused on a particular subject and limited in

duration.

They are moderated discussions. A moderator screens all

posted messages in advance to ensure that they are
germane to the discussion and follow the ground rules. This
is simply to ensure that the discussion stays on topic, so as
not to waste the time of all the other participants, and
remains civil and constructive.

They are all accessible online (where they are archived for
future reference) and by e-mail (through a “listserv”
distribution list), so that colleagues with limited Internet
access can participate.
Access and Reuse Of Knowledge
The study partners understand the benefit of being able to access
and reuse knowledge and know that this task is easiest if handled by
a centralized function. Sometimes the centralized team is made up
of cross-functional and/or virtual team members. Research groups
made up of KM team members make up the information services
groups. The goal of these groups in study partners is to categorize
organizational knowledge-sharing activities and make it accessible
and reusable to employees. Common tasks include portal
development, communication, and maintenance and providing help
desk support. They train employees on how to use systems and
tools and help them find information they are looking for.

3M

3M’s library information services function views knowledge

management as a means to leverage knowledge—explicit and tacit,
internal and external—to increase productivity and innovation. The
research portal provides 3M employees access to information, as
well as help desk services for each of its resources. The library
information services function has people dedicated to providing
guidance and/or service for each of its resources.

The library and information services group at 3M has a vision to

increase 3M’s productive use of knowledge to accelerate profitable
growth. Its mission is to support corporate goals by enabling 3M
employees to more effectively create, share, and use knowledge
through the following three businesses:
1. innovative information solutions—information research
and information management consulting,

2. access to information research—libraries and electronic

resources, and

3. bridges to internal knowledge.

The library information services function tracks the usage and
helpfulness of many of the services it delivers on a monthly basis.
Additionally, the library information services function interviews its
clients (users) on an ad hoc basis to ask questions such as “How
long did it take you to find the document or answer you were looking
for?”

Millennium

The goal of Millennium’s information sharing solutions group is to

deploy and support Millennium’s collaboration tools and activities
and communicate capability plans to the organization. One project
undertaken by the information sharing solutions group was the
aforementioned community portal. The goals for the information
sharing solutions group in regard to the COMPASS portal were to:

identify user needs and determine which available

collaboration tools most appropriately satisfy those needs,

determine the level of knowledge management and

information technology consulting needed for the user to be
successful and consistent with available resources,

provide a reference library that supports the deployment

process,

develop a practitioner network comprised of experts who

share best practices, and

reduce the time to effectively deploy tools.

In moving forward with future projects, the information sharing

solutions group wants to retain the strengths of the existing
deployment process, diminish weaknesses, and build in information
from customer needs assessments. A known strength is a hands-on
approach; the individual who has the initial contact with the user is
involved with the deployment throughout the process. This will
continue to happen as the group moves forward.

The information sharing solutions group also engages in a number of

other tasks. For example, it is charged with the training,
development, and delivery for all collaboration technologies. The
information sharing solutions group constructed the reference library
that holds the detailed steps on how to operate and navigate the
portal and e-rooms, as well as providing links to collaboration
resources. The information sharing solutions group holds monthly
meetings with a representative from e-room and a representative
from the portal. Attendees share new ideas and share some of the
work from the knowledge management group. The purpose is to
connect people in an open and informal atmosphere.
Conclusion
IT is no longer merely convenient. It now plays a more strategic role
in organizations, especially in scientific and technical knowledge
settings. IT is the way work gets done in these settings; it enables
project and work processes across all the study partners. Portals,
content management systems, databases, and repositories enable
individuals to collect, analyze, and synthesize information from
disparate internal and external sources. IT also fosters collaboration
in face-to-face and virtual settings and allows study partners to
access and reuse information. Chapter 6 will discuss how
organizations take individual and team knowledge and turn it into
organizational knowledge for future use.
Chapter 6: Organizational Learning
Overview
Knowledge creation is continuously underway in all organizations.
What happens to the knowledge created during a project? How do
best-practice organizations ensure that best practices and lessons
learned become embedded in the collective consciousness of the
organization? And how do they make sure this knowledge is
available to individuals and/or teams for reuse and to prevent
mistakes or reinvention?

As organizations operate in the global economy and serve

fragmented markets, it becomes essential to capture the reasons
behind decisions, to store the collective lessons learned and best
practices, to hasten learning, and to provide access to rules of
operation. Only by doing these things can organizations embed
knowledge in their collective consciousness, thereby going beyond
innovation to become learning organizations.

During the course of this study, the study team observed three ways
to address challenges in retaining lessons and experiences. Those
methods are to:
1. capture and reuse proven solutions,

2. highlight knowledge sources and resources, and

3. share stories and lessons learned.

This chapter examines the various activities used by the study

partners to capture valuable knowledge and lessons learned.
Knowledge Capture For Reuse
How does knowledge created by a team or individual become
organizational knowledge? What is the process used by successful
organizations for this purpose? According to APQC’s 2002 Best-
Practice Report Retaining Valuable Knowledge, the best advice is to
create systematic and systemic approaches that will build
organizational capabilities to retain valuable knowledge in any
climate.

Some of the means by which the study partners capture and store
explicit knowledge include databases, knowledge bases or
repositories, and shared project folders. Regarding capturing tacit
knowledge, codifying it, and making available for reuse, the study
partners use After-Action Reviews, knowledge mapping, interviews
and videos, and lessons learned activities.

After-Action Reviews

Pioneered by the U.S. Army, these facilitated meetings capture key

lessons upon the completion of a project or important action (Figure
3). The lessons are captured so that other teams can avoid
redundancy and repeating mistakes.

Figure 3: After-Action Review Process[7] An After-Action Review

(AAR) marries planning, action and reflection, building lessons
from the AAR into the planning process for the next round of
action.
After-Action Reviews works best when the process begins at the unit
or project team level and bubbles up through the reporting structure.
The entire unit or team should be involved to gain multiple viewpoints
(a singular point of view makes After-Action Reviews more like a
critique). Whoever leads an After-Action Review needs to understand
that his or her role is to focus on trends, not individuals. The team
engages in evaluating its own performance, isolating problems and
issues, and trying out varying solutions. The four basic questions are:
1. What was supposed to happen?

2. What actually happened?

3. Why were there differences?

4. What did we learn?

At Boeing Rocketdyne, After-Action Reviews are frequently used by

program management in the context of contract performance or
lessons learned sessions. These activities help identify the best
practices and other KM learning activities to be applied to the next
integrated product and process development team.

APQC’s 2002 Best-Practice Report Retaining Valuable Knowledge

detailed two points about After-Action Reviews. The first point is that
the appropriate time to hold an After-Action Review is after any
identifiable event. At that time, memory is fresh and unvarnished and
the participants are usually still available. And the lessons can be
applied immediately. The second point is that there is more than one
way to design an After-Action Review practice for an organization.
What it looks like in an organization will depend on several factors,
including organizational culture, the goal of the After-Action Review,
and the focus of the team using it.

Lessons Learned Exercises

Whereas After-Action Reviews tend to focus on a specific project

team, lessons learned exercises focus on determining lessons from
projects or situations and publishing them for all employees to see
and learn from. Lessons learned exercises are proving to be a very
powerful activity for the innovative organization. These exercises can
stimulate innovation by identifying needs that may later turn into new
products and services. Also, because lessons learned exercises take
place at key milestones in the innovation process, they provide
feedback during the process (e.g., new product development to
guide design of successful products).

Capturing lessons learned provides a number of benefits to the

organization performing the exercise:

enables the capture of explicit knowledge;

enables sharing tacit knowledge during a discussion, which

can then be captured and made explicit;

identifies valuable lessons for the organization;

enhances openness and cooperation in the team;

enables the achievement of closure at the end of the project;

and

connects the work to the knowledge and the knowledge to

the work.

Boeing Rocketdyne

Boeing Rocketdyne uses lessons learned activities to feed part of its

KM database, and its leadership team endorses both the formal and
informal efforts to capture lessons learned in the organization.

Boeing Rocketdyne has a series of best practices and lessons

learned Web sites where employees can search for available
information assembled by the all-Boeing Rocketdyne Executive
Process Councils. Local Web sites assembled by the KM team also
enable the capture of new lessons learned directly by employees.
Boeing Rocketdyne also has a set of ad hoc approaches where
lessons learned and knowledge are disseminated by movement of
personnel among teams, functional team meetings, dissemination of
best practices to newly forming teams, functional/organizational
CoPs, and integrated product team meetings and within classes.

Boeing Rocketdyne has a structured approach to capturing lessons

learned and feeding them back into training. This approach takes
advantage of corrective action boards, preventive action boards, and
the natural work teams that perform these functions. This is part of
the organization’s overall KM process.

There are other formal efforts that have been made to record and
disseminate lessons learned from one program to another, and there
have been programs to address topics of general interest in lunch or
after-hours forums. Leadership has endorsed all these type of
activities.

Boeing Rocketdyne’s Technical Information Center maintains lessons

learned records. Most transfers of information are generated by
individuals.

At Boeing Rocketdyne, collaboration participants have been

concerned about privacy issues related to the amount of sharing
involved in After-Action Reviews and lessons learned activities. Most
of the concerns are because of the hero mentality that is embedded
in the culture. A person cannot make a public mistake without being
ridiculed by his peers. It is this fear of failure, or public humiliation,
that has caused the most problems with use of collaboration tools.

NASA JPL

NASA’s formal mechanism for sharing lessons learned across the

agency is its lessons learned information system, which contains
lessons from the operation or design of particular missions and
project elements. The team focused on redesigning the system to
address a variety of concerns. In a 2002 report, the General
Accounting Office recognized that managers were reluctant to share
negative lessons for fear that they might not be viewed as good
project managers and that there was little time to learn lessons. One
manager stated, “Until we can adopt a culture that frankly admits to
what really worked and didn’t work, I find many of these tools to be
suspect.”[8] The GAO report also revealed significant inadequacies
in the effectiveness of system.

NASA managers identified program reviews and informal discussions

with colleagues as their principal sources for lessons learned rather
than the lessons learned information system. One reason lessons
learned information system is not widely used, according to one
center official, is because its lessons cover so many topics that it is
difficult to search for an applicable lesson.

In benchmarking best-practice organizations APQC has found some

lessons learned about After-Action Reviews and lessons learned
exercises.

After-Action Reviews and lessons learned activities should

be performed upon completion of critical business process
steps.

Schedule After-Action Reviews when memory is fresh and

unvarnished, participants are still available, and you can
apply the lessons immediately. Waiting to capture lessons
learned until weeks after the end of a major event of vast
scope is too late.

Good facilitation is key.

Participants must understand that After-Action Reviews and

lessons learned activities are not about blame; instead, they
should focus on fixing problems. Poor performers in After-
Action Reviews are those that are not candid about
successes and failures.
 Reuse the knowledge even before a project ends.

Interviews and Videotaping

APQC has found that interviews and videotaping provide a very

effective means of tacit knowledge capture. Interviews allow an
organization to make knowledge explicit, categorize it, and store it in
a repository for future use. Interviews are typically conducted upon
the conclusion of a project or prior to an employee leaving the
organization. The study partners use interviews as a means of
capturing tacit knowledge after mission-critical or innovative work
and after special or pilot projects. Boeing Rocketdyne has a review
process where the experiences of recognized experts are
communicated to design teams for consideration.

The World Bank has developed a framework for debriefing

individuals and groups to capture tacit knowledge. Through its
debriefing framework, the World Bank seeks to retain valuable
experiences, share lessons learned, expand the knowledge base,
and improve operational product quality. The focus is on interviewing
teams and individuals before, during, and after tasks; before
transfers; and before retirement.

During debriefing interviews, team leaders or project leaders are

asked to relay the experience in detail rather than provide general
observations. Typical questions include: What was difficult about the
project? What was successful? and What would you do differently?
The interview is videotaped, and two-minute to three-minute clips are
developed around thematic areas of discussion. The average time
for the interview is one to two hours, and preparation and synthesis
of content take about a week. The interviewee discusses questions
prior to the interview with the debriefing team and reviews the tape
prior to publishing. Interviewees provide feedback on the debriefing
process concerning what was valuable or not valuable. The average
cost of each debrief is approximately $5,000, which is primarily staff
time.
The World Bank admits that there are limits to the effectiveness of
this approach. To address issues surrounding delivery, the World
Bank makes the interviews available in video and text format and
provides links to relevant documents. The video is modularized for
easy viewing as well. Securing the participation of retirees in the
process is especially vital because so much of their knowledge
comes out in context during the interview process. However, the
culture of the World Bank is such that sharing in this fashion is
expected during a person’s tenure with the World Bank, and that
expectation often carries over after a person has retired from the
World Bank.

Knowledge Maps

APQC defines knowledge mapping as a process by which

organizations can identify and categorize knowledge assets within
their organization—people, processes, content, and technology. It
allows an organization to fully leverage the existing expertise within
the company, as well as identify barriers and constraints to fulfilling
strategic goals and objectives. And it allows the organization to
construct a road map to locate the information needed to make the
best use of resources, independent of source or form.

Knowledge maps are pictorial depictions of an expert locator system

and repositories. A knowledge map should depict who has the
knowledge or where it is located. More importantly, a knowledge map
outlines the relationships between the knowledge providers and the
rest of the organization, which helps form the context for knowledge
being shared. It is important, therefore, for an organization to ask
what knowledge is valuable and, if done in a different way, how
would it add value to the organization.

Knowledge mapping can occur at the enterprise, cross-functional, or

process levels in an organization. At all levels, the knowledge map
provides an assessment of existing or required knowledge and
information in the following categories:
 What knowledge is needed?

Who has this knowledge?

Where does this knowledge reside?

Is the knowledge tacit or explicit?

Is the knowledge routine or not routine?

What issues does it address?

Figure 4 depicts a sample process-level knowledge map. Tacit and

explicit knowledge can be found in the shaded squares.

Figure 4: APQC’s Process-level Knowledge Map

[7]Darling and Perry. From Post-Mortem to Living Practice: An in-

depth study of the evolution of the After-Action Review. Signet
Consulting Group, 2000

[8]U.S. General Accounting Office. “NASA: Better Mechanisms

Needed for Sharing Lessons Learned.” (GAO-02-195), January
2002, page 5.
Highlighting Knowledge Sources and
Resources
Two critical components for the use of knowledge resources are
awareness—that the resources exist and have valuable content—
and communication. People won’t know a resource is available to
them unless someone communicates about it and shows them
where to find it. Raising that awareness requires executive support
and some sort of communication plan.

Important elements to consider when devising a communication plan

are to:

identify stakeholders that must receive communication and

include daily, weekly, and monthly communication ideas, as
well as key leadership messages;

tune the message and medium to the audience (for example,

senior management needs one kind of message, an advisory
board needs another, and the workers at large need a third);
and

use all company media to disseminate the message and

cascade the communication plans throughout the
organization.

The study partners use a variety of channels to communicate the

existence of knowledge resources and raise awareness of them
including communities of practice, e-mail alerts, newsletters,
intranets, posters, and perhaps most important, word of mouth.
However, even with all of this exposure, the use of existing
knowledge resources remains only moderate overall. Senior
management involvement is needed to drive the message across
and encourage high-level, consistent use of these resources.
Strong management support provides an incentive for people to
collaborate and share. When asked to rate the level of senior leader
involvement in communicating the importance of knowledge sharing,
the study partners and sponsors indicated (on average) a moderate
level of involvement by their senior leaders. All five of the study
partners reported that although some of their knowledge resources
are used some of the time by some of the people, they wished that
all of the knowledge resources were used all of the time by all of
their people. The confluence of these two factors (moderate senior
leader involvement and moderate resource use) highlights a need
among the study partners for increased leadership involvement in
their efforts to increase the use of organizational tools and
resources.

Boeing Rocketdyne

Within Boeing Rocketdyne’s process organizations, leadership holds

responsibility for coordinating and communicating the importance of
knowledge and knowledge sharing. Communication is accomplished
through formal, internal communications backed with examples,
such as willingness to invest and explicit inclusion in strategies.
Leadership also has the responsibility of actively participating in
knowledge sharing through meetings.

NASA JPL

NASA JPL’s chief information officer, chief engineer, and associate

administrator for human resources and education champion KM by
embedding the rules in the collaboration tools and ensuring the tools
support the engineering processes. They help affect cultural change
through recognition and education on KM principles and tools.

The World Bank

At the World Bank, top management acts as the change agent for
the organization by raising the awareness of the need for knowledge
sharing. One of the most supportive champions of KM at the World
Bank is its president, Jim Wolfenson who articulated the vision for a
knowledge bank in 1996.
Sharing Stories and Lessons Learned
The first two-thirds of this chapter discusses knowledge capture for
reuse and communication about knowledge resources. Both are
critical elements to embedding knowledge into the organizational
memory. However, they also both act as “push” mechanisms and
don’t really involve the end user. How does the organization engage
the end user (i.e., the scientist and researcher) to contribute to and
pull from organizational knowledge? One method used by three of
the best-practice organizations in this study is story telling.

Story telling can be a very powerful tool. It can have emotional

content, and a good story teller can invoke visuals in the listener’s
head. It should be rich with details that provoke and engage the
listener.

Ultimately, stories should become part of an organization’s

anthology, thereby succeeding in converting local knowledge into
organizational knowledge. The following section details story telling
examples from four of the study partners.

3M

3M’s culture of knowledge creation and innovation is transmitted

through stories that celebrate internal innovators who passionately
pursue an idea. Story telling is a cultural expectation at 3M, but there
is no formal structure for it. Innovators are expected to tell their
stories, which supports the sociology and culture of the organization.

Boeing Rocketdyne

Informal story telling is a constant feature of several of Boeing

Rocketdyne’s programs, and it reinforces the organization’s heritage
in collaboration and exchange of tacit knowledge. For instance, its
“thinking road map” seminars create high levels of organizational
consciousness on the need to collaborate and share tacit
knowledge.

NASA JPL

NASA’s JPL Library, Archives, and Records section sponsors a

monthly series called JPL stories. The story sessions are regularly
scheduled. The organizers look for certain criteria in their story
tellers (see Chapter 8). The concept is to provide an informal and
experiential environment for both the story teller and the story
listeners.

The program is kept as flexible as possible and includes a cross

section of story tellers from the JPL community. Stories can take
place in the past, present, or future; they can be historical or fictional;
and they can be light-hearted or serious. The organizers also collect
feedback from the listeners on the stories. According to a JPL
librarian, stories are an effective way to communicate and
understand an organization’s culture and can help employees
develop a sense of organizational identity. Stories offer an approach
different from the more formal lectures, seminars, and town halls.
They offer another way to be a part of the discussion.

The World Bank

Story telling has long been a vehicle for conveying success in the
World Bank. Back in 1996 when the World Bank began its KM
journey, story telling was used to help people understand the
concept of knowledge management. The stories provided examples
of how knowledge sharing had already worked either inside or
outside the World Bank. Story telling enabled managers and staff
members to understand the concept and, by analogy, reinvent the
concept for their own work environments.
Conclusion
Organizational learning is critical to the successful innovative
organization. Without it, the organization is doomed to repeat
mistakes, while spending valuable time and money going down
paths already explored and abandoned. However, the challenge is to
embed what the organization learns into collective consciousness.
The study partners use After-Action Reviews, lessons learned
exercises, interviews, knowledge maps, and story telling to embed
knowledge into the organizational memory.

The study partners provided the following advice:

Capture knowledge for reuse.

Make knowledge available for reuse in many formats using

many resources because different people prefer push or pull
mechanisms and learn in different ways.

Support these resources with funding for maintenance.

Communicate the existence of these resources; don’t

assume that people know about them.

Ensure the support and use of these resources with active

senior leadership support.
Chapter 7: Outcomes and Benefits of Using
Knowledge to Drive Innovation
Overview
The previous chapters of this report discussed approaches that
enable the flow of information and knowledge to understand the
need (driver) for innovation, form the right team, enliven project and
work processes with knowledge, and capture organizational lessons.
Each of those elements is critical to the innovation process, but how
does an organization know its innovation processes are successful?
It must measure them.

According to Thomas Kuczmarski in his article titled Measuring Your

Return on Innovation[9], measures make the intangible tangible by
providing valuable information to key stakeholders that can be used
to:

benchmark—to track performance against the organization,

industry, competition, and the rest of the business
community;

diagnose—to identify and evaluate those processes and

strategies that can help meet growth and strategic goals;

allocate resources—to enable management to determine

spending on R&D, team resources, portfolio mix, and other
collateral;

compensate employees—to evaluate and reward new

product teams that establish a credible link between new
product performance and corporate incentives;

inform markets—to set a common measure for markets and

outside investors to evaluate an organization’s future earning
potential relative to its industry peers; and
 set future goals—to determine organizational direction and
establish future innovation strategies.

The study partners use their metrics for many of the reasons listed
above. In today’s uncertain economy, the use of metrics to show
value, allocate resources, and determine future goals goes a long
way toward ensuring a program’s place in an organization. The initial
sections of this chapter look at measures of success. How does an
organization know that its innovation efforts have a beneficial impact
on the organization’s bottom line? How does an individual in that
organization know that his or her work has been successful for the
organization? The second part of this chapter examines the
outcomes and benefits of measurement. Three reasons to use
knowledge management in innovation are the ability to make faster
solutions and decisions, with a lower risk, and at a lower cost.

[9]Kuczmarski, Thomas D. Measuring Your Return on Innovation.

Marketing Management, Vol. 9, No. 1, pg. 24-32, Spring 2000.
Measures Of Success
The study partners primarily use NPD/innovation measures and
metrics to determine the success or failure of their innovation efforts
and investments. However, when it comes to demonstrating how
knowledge sharing impacts innovation, they primarily have only
anecdotal evidence, which is captured in success stories. They have
not successfully demonstrated the link between the use of
knowledge sharing, or knowledge management, to successful
innovation.

The study partners provided examples of the types of metrics they

currently use to measure the success of their innovation programs:

percentage of total sales coming from new products,

number of new products per year,

number of patents or copyrights per year,

number of products protected by patents,

measurement of the investment in different types of

research,

product modification (new products related to existing

products),

ROI by product category,

strength and sustainability of the pipeline,

extent of commercialization of targets,

revenue growth,

number of published papers and new technology briefs,

successful transfer of technology into industry,

 time-to-market, and

development costs.

3M

3M has long-standing innovation measures that include:

the percentage of total sales coming from new products,

the number of new products per year,

the number of patents per year,

the number of products protected by patents,

measurement of the investment in different types of

research,

product modification (new products related to existing

products), and

the ROI by product category.

3M’s KM measures are in development.

Millennium

Millennium measures the strength of its pipeline (i.e., the market

potential of drugs in various stages), how its pipeline and alliances
are viewed by the market (i.e., expectations about future revenues),
and current sales. Its macro measures include analyzing stages,
success rate by stage, and the drop out rate for each stage.

The KM initiative measures its impact by the acceptance and use of

the knowledge bases and databases: hits and use, quality and
growth of content, and the extent that searches are successful.
Millenium’s KM groups recently completed a survey with users and
stakeholders concerning their perceptions of the approach, its
usefulness, and what they thought needed enhancement. The
results are reviewed with each of the stakeholders and functional
groups. Action-planning sessions, led by the functional groups and
KM, are underway; groups will be asked to come up with
recommendations that they can implement themselves, not just what
the KM group can do.

The World Bank

The World Bank has monitored and evaluated the effectiveness of its
KM processes and its impact on innovation since the start of its KM
efforts. Inputs, activities, outputs, and even outcomes have been
measured. The World Bank’s measures include:

monitoring and tracking outputs and utilization of resources,

database usage statistics, and the number of unique visitors
to the intranet portal site;

the number of innovation grants and loans and tracking of

learning and tuition loans (each project is measured
separately and has its own set of indicators); and

an annual survey to understand how KM is contributing to

the success of the World Bank and its profitability.

The World Bank measures the inputs into knowledge management,

such as how much is being spent and the number of programs. The
World Bank also measures outputs, which involve the number of
best practices, new tools, knowledge nuggets, resources added, or
processes put in place. It then measures the utilization of knowledge
products and services, such as the number of unique visitors to a
Web site, the number of queries on an information and statistics
system, or the number of requests for advisory services. The World
Bank also conducts internal client surveys. Each of the World Bank’s
sector boards surveys the community concerning what knowledge
products are most effective, how often are they visited, and the
respondents’ contributions in the last year.

The World Bank also conducts an overall staff survey, which asks a
range of questions, including some focused on knowledge sharing.
The questions focus on “the extent to which people feel they have
access to knowledge to do their work” and “the extent to which
global knowledge is perceived to be available to client.” A number of
external surveys have been conducted within Africa by asking main
counterparts in government project offices about the improvement in
access to knowledge through the World Bank (to which people
replied quite positively) and the extent to which the World Bank is
doing a good job at adapting global knowledge to local conditions.
The answers were less favorable to the second part, which indicates
that the World Bank still has room for improvement in terms of
knowledge adaptation. The World Bank Institute has helped various
units at the World Bank to structure surveys that identify best
practices in measuring output and impact and ways in which to share
that across the organization. The role of the institute is to help
provide the tools, but the work is done within the various units. There
is an evaluation unit, which traditionally evaluates projects at the
World Bank, that has begun to focus on knowledge-sharing projects
at the World Bank.

Success Stories

One way the study partners convey the success of their innovation
efforts is through success stories. Typically anecdotal in nature,
success stories convey not only the hard results, but also share the
context that make those results meaningful to the “listeners.” They
motivate and energize people to do more and reach further for
success. Success stories may be shared using the story telling
format discussed in Chapter 6, or they may be captured and shared
electronically in videos and presentations and in databases or
repositories. Chapter 8 provides some examples of the types of
success stories shared by three of this study’s best-practice
partners: 3M, Boeing Rocketdyne, and the World Bank.

Improving Measurement for Innovation

Although measurement is an excellent way to demonstrate the value

of a process or program such as innovation, APQC has observed
that many times mea- surement is used inconsistently or not at all.
This inconsistency in the use of mea- sures can impede
improvements in processes and programs. Metrics and the story
they tell can shape new product development strategy and
performance, which in turn shape communication and expectations
from management. Clear expectations and performance
measurement help employees become less risk averse, thereby
shap- ing and changing the culture of the organization.

So how can an organization improve its measurement for innovation

system? Thomas Kuczmarski lists seven keys to managing
measurement for innovation.
1. Appoint an innovation investment measurement team.
Make the team responsible for certain tasks such as
deciding which measures to use and developing a standard
collection process.

2. Examine the list of investment performance and investment

program metrics. Identify those most relevant to the
organization.

3. Develop a standardized procedure for collecting the data.

Part of this procedure should include developing roles and
responsibilities for team members.

4. Establish a standard time period over which to calculate the

metrics. A three- to five-year period is standard for most
industries.
 5. Generate a product portfolio. The portfolio should include a
list of new products that are new to the company, new to
the world, and products that are line extensions or
improvements.

6. Identify and develop the product pipeline flow. Determine

the milestone date for each product to reach each gate in
the stage gate process.

7. Collect the data. Be sure to use language and formats that

will resonate with the different audiences in the
organizations.[10]

[10]Kuczmarski, Thomas D. Measuring Your Return on Innovation.

Marketing Management, Vol. 9, No. 1, pg. 24-32, Spring 2000.
Outcomes and Benefits
What kind of benefits can organizations expect from enhancing the
use, creation, and flow of knowledge in support of innovation
programs? The following sections represent some of the successes
reported by study partners.

Faster Solutions and Decisions

Most of the study partners are interested in reducing the time to

develop products and services and enabling faster decision making.

3M

At 3M, the Surface Conditioning Division team was charged to

reduce the time-to-market from 18 months to an average of four
months for its new product introduction process. Using various
collaboration tools to support knowledge sharing, the Surface
Conditioning Division team achieved its primary target of reduced
time-to-market in February 2002 by rolling out a new product in 28
days (from product conception to delivery to the marketplace).
Although this level of time- to-market won’t be a regular occurrence,
it is a huge benefit for the Surface Conditioning Division team. As of
the fourth quarter of 2001, the average new product introduction
cycle was 2.5 months.

Boeing Rocketdyne

Using innovative ideas in knowledge sharing, virtual collaboration,

and project management, the Boeing Rocketdyne SLICE team
designed a new thrust chamber for a rocket engine with some
impressive results, including a reduction in cycle time from 3.5 years
to nine months.

Millennium
Millennium uses customer and market feedback to improve its
decision-making process concerning innovation and new product
development. By soliciting feedback from its customers and patients
and incorporating that feedback into its strategies, Millennium can
make decisions faster about which products to focus on and come to
market quicker with new products.

The World Bank

Communities of practice, in this case called thematic groups, add

value to development not only through their knowledge base, but
also through their ability to expedite the problem-solving process.

For example, among other functions, the transport sector serves as

an informal help desk that responds to requests from staff and
occasionally from outside the World Bank. The Government of
Nigeria in partnership with the private sector and donor
organizations, in one instance, has been examining innovative ways
to improve the growth and equity impact of its transport sector.
During discussions in November 2000, the government asked the
World Bank for examples of global best practice for the development
of a transport sector strategy. A rapid desk review of the World
Bank’s internal documentation did not readily identify a relevant best-
practice example in this area. The task team leader sent an e-mail to
the entire transport network using a distribution list, maintained by
the anchor, to find best-practice examples for a national transport
sector strategy. The first response came 20 minutes after the initial
inquiry was sent from a World Bank staff member working in Beirut,
who sent a useful contribution. Within 24 hours, four other relevant
contributions were made by colleagues, including letters and notes
on transport sector reform strategies, terms of reference for carrying
out transport sector reviews, and reference to a recent working
paper by the operations evaluation department. Additional
contributions came later, all adding practical knowledge in
addressing the original inquiry.
Eleven country examples were obtained as a response to the query.
These examples, along with others, were shared with the
Government of Nigeria. The expectation is that, by focusing on such
best-practice examples, the government will save significantly on
technical assistance costs and improve the timeliness of producing
its own transport sector strategy. Without access to the distribution
list through the thematic group, it would have taken weeks, if not
months, to garner the necessary information.

Lower Risk

The risk management process is a critical success factor for the

innovation process at many leading organizations. The key is to take
appropriate and necessary risks and to tie risk management to the
organization’s overall strategy. For example, NASA JPL lowers the
risk of technical failure by reusing components. However, there is a
tradeoff in that by doing such it risks not being as innovative. The
effects of decision making and its impact on other parts of the
organization and the whole process must be taken into
consideration.

Boeing Rocketdyne

At Boeing Rocketdyne, knowledge of the opportunities and the state-

of-the- practice for its products is a necessity for beneficial
innovation. Although knowledge is seen within the organization as a
critical component of its innovation strategy, the utility of innovation is
examined closely to understand the risks involved. The role of
innovation is to provide competitive discriminators for existing and
future company offerings. KM focuses on using knowledge in both a
product and process sense to design, produce, and sustain Boeing
Rocketdyne’s products, as well as to promote innovation where there
is no existing knowledge. By utilizing knowledge, and not repeating
or performing new effort, Boeing Rocketdyne enables much more
cost effective utility of people and lower costs to be passed on to its
customers.
NASA JPL

Knowledge management is critical to NASA because the

organization is constantly challenged to document and integrate
lessons learned to effectively manage the risk involved in space
exploration and human space flight. It is continuously enhancing its
ability to capture knowledge by collecting best practices for
managing risk, encouraging employees to share successes and
failures, and creating a virtual presence of key staff at reviews
through its technical questions database.

Lower Cost

By using knowledge-sharing principles and tools to improve decision

making and lower risk, organizations also lower the cost of
developing new products and services. Lower costs can be
demonstrated in reduced cycle time or time-to-market, reduced costs
for parts, and improved quality. These lower costs may also transfer
to partners and vendors, as discussed by 3M.

3M

The Surface Conditioning Division team not only realized its primary
goal of a reduction in time-to-market, but also lowered the cost of its
new product introduction process for itself and its vendor. The
Surface Conditioning Division team realized that with this kind of
reduction in time-to-market, there would be other benefits as well,
such as resource savings and increased competitive advantage. In
this case, the Surface Conditioning Division team also realized a
cost savings of approximately $1 million for the vendor in 2001.

Boeing Rocketdyne

In addition to the reduction in cycle time, the Boeing Rocketdyne

SLICE team engineered reductions in parts and cost for the thrust
engine, which follow.

A thrust chamber for a rocket engine was designed using

only six parts instead of the normal 1,200.

Manufacturing costs were reduced from $7 million to $0.5

million.

The predicted quality level is nine Sigma instead of the

current industry best practice of six Sigma.

The normal first unit production cost was reduced from $4.5
million to $47,000.
Conclusion
Kuczmarski suggests that organizations wanting to be successful in
their innovation programs use two types of innovation-related
metrics: innovation performance metrics (those that measure growth)
and innovation program metrics (those that measure and reflect
program management and control)[11]. Innovation performance
metrics provide a snapshot of long-term performance and impact of
the new product development program on the organization.
Innovation program metrics reflect operational concerns. Innovative
performance metrics include:

return on innovation investment,

new product success rate (hit rate),

new product survival rate,

cumulative new product revenue and cumulative new

product profit, and

growth impact.

Innovation program metrics include:

R&D innovation emphasis ratio,

innovation portfolio mix,

process to product pipeline flow,

innovation revenues per employee, and

time-to-market.

Many of the innovation metrics used by the study partners roll up into
one or more of these metrics. However, there are some gaps, which
suggests that there is room for improvement and growth in the way
that the partners use metrics to determine success for their
innovation programs.

Chapter 8 will discuss KM measures as part of the larger KM

infrastructure at the best-practice organizations.

[11]Kuczmarski, Thomas D. Measuring Your Return on Innovation.

Marketing Management, Vol. 9, No. 1, pg. 24-32, Spring 2000.
Chapter 8: Knowledge Management
Infrastructure
AKM infrastructure should support all of the components of the
knowledge- enabled learning and innovation model. Organizations
create an infrastructure for KM in order to integrate the KM strategy
into operations, to ensure that KM activities do not occur in isolation,
to give the KM effort definition through a supporting framework and
structure, and to identify the people and roles that will actually make
it happen.

For the purposes of this study, the knowledge management

infrastructure includes a KM strategy, KM-specific structure and
roles, KM budgets and funding, information technology, and KM
measures.
The Knowledge Management Strategy
Regardless of the organization, the focus of KM is to leverage
knowledge assets to create a competitive advantage for the
organization. The purpose of a KM strategy is to:

understand how to best leverage the knowledge assets of an

organization to support its business goals and objectives,

establish the KM goals and objectives for an organization,

identify the key projects that will demonstrate the value of

KM to the organization, and

define the expected impact of the KM activities.

Defining KM

Establishing a common definition of KM will aid in the development

of a KM strategy for the organization. All the study partners clearly
articulate a KM definition. Most of the partners’ KM definitions
focused on connecting people, process, and content with enabling
technologies to provide a business value for the organization.

3M—A foundational organizational and individual

competency that enables every corporate initiative, business
process, and individual employee to maximize customer
satisfaction, sustainable profitability, and growth.

Boeing Rocketdyne—A systematic approach to generating

process and product knowledge and organizing and retaining
the process and product knowledge so that it can be
effectively applied to product improvements and future
products.
 Millennium—Enable the flow of information and knowledge
across the company by aligning technologies, processes,
and incentives to create an environment in which people
have the information they need to make better, faster
decisions.

NASA JPL—Knowledge management is getting the right

information to the right people at the right time and helping
people create knowledge and share and act upon
information in ways that will measurably improve the
performance of NASA and its partners.

The World Bank—Systematically capturing and organizing

the wealth of knowledge and experience gained from staff,
clients, and development partners; making this knowledge
readily accessible to a wide audience internally and
externally; and creating links between groups and
communities working on similar topics.

KM Strategy at the Partner Organizations 3M

Knowledge-sharing activities and transfer mechanisms have existed

for many years at 3M, but had not been thought of in those terms
until recently. 3M defines its KM strategy with the following
statements:

Foster awareness and understanding of KM in the

organization.

Promote high-value KM initiatives.

Leverage existing technology.

Develop KM methodology and processes.

Benchmark.

Maintain sustainability.
Prior to establishing the KM strategy, the focus was to understand
how KM could be linked to the five corporate performance initiatives.
3M uses KM to support its five corporate performance initiatives
rather than having it compete against them. Used this way, KM
provides more lift to 3M by supporting the drivers of change already
underway.

One of 3M’s five corporate performance initiatives is Six Sigma.

Currently, 3M has approximately 2,500 Six Sigma projects running.
Many of these projects are aimed at solving common problems, with
best practices and lessons learned coming out of these projects.
Extensive amounts of new, explicit knowledge and content are being
created. The question becomes “How does 3M organize all this so it
can be retrieved and reused in order to prevent someone from
reinventing the wheel?”

The KM strategy was to provide the necessary guidance, link, and

alignment for Six Sigma and corporate IT to develop a knowledge
replication and reporting database, which was launched in
September 2002. It is expected that the database will improve
resource allocation and cost savings for the organization, reduce
future project cycle times by reusing valuable knowledge, and help
link people to share tacit knowledge.

Boeing Rocketdyne

A formal KM process started in engineering in 1998 at Boeing

Rocketdyne. The engineering-led initiative led to the formation of a
formal Boeing Rocketdyne Canoga Park KM team. The team has
taken KM to all facets of the business through the exploration of
available techniques and internal partnerships. However, it should be
noted that Boeing Rocketdyne emphasizes the product and process
aspects of KM, with little attention, in general, to the people side.
With the engineering operations process having formal responsibility
for KM, the KM team is chartered to:
 extend KM to the rest of the Boeing Rocketdyne
organization,

formalize processes,

incorporate new tools, and

further integrate activities across the enterprise.

The KM team is comprised of people who are considered some of

the best people in their fields from within the division. However,
Boeing Rocketdyne also uses the expertise of other Boeing business
units to develop its KM strategies. Additionally, each process director
and process manager is responsible for generic product and process
specific methodologies, knowledge, and knowledge management.

Millennium

At Millennium, the KM strategy is continually refined to identify where

the largest opportunities are to use KM for change and productivity
increases. The objectives of the KM strategy at Millennium include:
1. better quality of information around targets (greater clinical
relevance and higher success rates);

2. more efficient collaboration with alliances and between line

functions (less downtime around key decisions and faster
pipeline progression); and

3. better integration of discovery, development, and

commercial knowledge (build predictive capability and
enable simulation).

Partnering with the IT organization, the major projects undertaken by

the KM group include:

MyBiology—a database to enable scientists to capture,

share, and reuse scientific findings;
 Compass—a portal and simple content management system
designed to enable employees to more easily access internal
documents and data; and

eRoom—a collaboration space to promote information

sharing and decision making within alliances and key
programs.

A new project on the horizon is the creation of the target validation

knowledge base, which will capture the Millennium-specific scientific
findings from laboratory notebooks.

NASA JPL

The key dimensions for NASA’s KM strategy are to:

sustain knowledge across missions and generations of

employees to identify and capture existing information;

help people find, organize, and share the knowledge it

already has to efficiently manage knowledge resources; and

increase collaboration and facilitate knowledge creation and

sharing by developing techniques and tools to enable teams
and communities to collaborate across the barriers of time
and space.

The goals of NASA’s KM team are to find and implement good

solutions, fill in the gaps, and gather resources to support its
missions and research communities. KM supports and enables
processes and initiatives by advocating best practices, promoting
good solutions, and building infrastructure and applications to bridge
distributed systems.

The NASA JPL knowledge management team is supporting its

lessons learned information systems, which contain lessons learned
from the operation or design of particular missions and project
elements and a Web-based, customizable portal including Inside
JPL and Inside NASA pages.

The World Bank

The World Bank’s knowledge strategy has three focal points:

1. improving the World Bank’s operational quality and
effectiveness through enhancing its capacity;

2. enhancing the sharing of knowledge with its clients and

partners; and

3. enhancing client capacity to assess and make effective use

of knowledge, whatever the source.

The World Bank believes that business survival requires sharing

knowledge. Sharing knowledge will increase speed (faster cycle
times), improve quality (better quality service), increase innovation
(testing new approaches), and reduce costs (eliminate unnecessary
processes). Lending alone cannot reduce poverty. Knowledge
sharing ideally brings new actors to the stage and provides global
access to development knowledge, which could change the poverty
equation.
KM-Specific Structures and Roles
After establishing a KM strategy, the support structures and roles
must be established to execute the KM strategy so that knowledge
sharing can enable business processes such as innovation. APQC
defines support structures as the organizational groups or networks,
created at a corporate or a functional level (sometimes both), that
link to the organization’s formal structure and provide the direction,
processes, and resources a KM initiative needs to grow and sustain
itself over time.

This study identified a consistent pattern of organization structure

and roles to support knowledge management for innovation. The
necessary structures and support varied somewhat across the
partners, but the common elements are a steering committee that
supports and guides the effort (usually consists of senior managers),
a core group that coordinates and guides the knowledge
management activities, and support roles.

Steering Committee or Leadership Team

The role of a steering committee is to create purpose and context,

set direction and priorities, and provide resources. Usually a cross-
functional team made up of members of senior management, the
steering committee validates knowledge management and related
activities and sets direction. Steering committees provide support in
a myriad of ways, such as funding, minimizing barriers, approving
initiatives, and promoting knowledge sharing throughout the
enterprise. As the bridge between the KM initiatives and the formal
organization, the steering committee links the business units,
corporate, and IT, which ensures that the organizational strategy
dictates the scope and direction of the KM initiatives, instead of the
preferences of any one group.

3M
At 3M, two full-time KM practitioners lead and facilitate the cross-
functional corporate steering team. The KM steering team is
composed of representatives from major areas around the company
including Six Sigma, IT, HR, library and information services, and
marketing. The KM steering team is responsible for developing and
deploying KM strategies for 3M, defined through three objectives:
1. establish and promote organizational awareness of the KM
strategy,

2. work with business units to improve KM practices, and

3. replicate KM tools and processes.

NASA JPL

The NASA executive steering committee—consisting of the chief

information officer, the chief engineer, and the associate
administrator for HR and education— sponsors the cross-agency KM
team. The executive steering committee coordinates with the cross-
agency KM team, which includes KM leads in each enterprise (i.e.,
business unit) and center (i.e., geographic location such as JPL).
The KM team and leads meets virtually to address issues such as
who will be responsible for the championship of KM at the local level,
implementation of strategic goals, and roll-out of operational
processes and tools.

The KM Core or Central Team

A steering committee or leadership team may provide the overall

direction and visibility for knowledge management in an organization,
but a core team of knowledge management practitioners will provide
more of the hands-on guidance for the actual creation and
deployment of a knowledge management initiative. When asked if
their organization has specific roles to support knowledge
management activities, each of the study partners indicated its
organization has specific roles to support knowledge management
activities. Figure 5 illustrates the variation of the number of full-time
individuals and where knowledge management resides for each
best-practice organization.

Figure 5: Formal KM Organization

3M

The two full-time KM practitioners lead and facilitate a cross-

functional corporate steering team to develop strategy, coordinate,
and align 3M’s wide array of KM resources and activities. This two-
person resource is known as the knowledge transformation program
office. Knowledge transformation is becoming the 3M term for KM. In
addition to facilitating the steering team, the program office is
beginning to develop a process and toolkit for KM projects with
business units.

Boeing Rocketdyne

Figure 6 (page 88) illustrates the multiple-domain KM team at Boeing

Rocketdyne. The KM team encompasses nearly all business and
technical areas of Boeing Rocketdyne Canoga Park. It addresses
KM through various integrated initiatives and is composed of people
considered the best in their fields within the division. Each process
director and process manager is responsible for generic product and
process specific methodologies, knowledge, and knowledge
management. As a specific example of such responsibility, within
much of the manufacturing process, KM responsibility resides with
the manufacturing engineers.
 Figure 6: Boeing Canoga Park KM Team

At Boeing Rocketdyne, the KM practitioner responsibilities include

formulating a rational, affordable KM process and infrastructure to
capture and use knowledge to leverage Boeing Rocketdyne’s
capabilities. Other supporting responsibilities for the KM team are to:

manage the major process initiative to implement

skills/knowledge management tools and infrastructure within,
for example, production operations or supplier management;

define and assess tool requirements;

pilot projects;

coordinate activities and resources within the larger internal

and external KM community;

act as stewards of knowledge;

act as knowledge librarians; and

act as team leaders, organizers, and system maintenance.

Millennium

The matrix organizational structure at Millennium is by function and

key initiatives. The Millennium senior management team is
responsible for all strategic initiatives, one of which is productivity.
The KM team reports into the productivity initiative via the chief
knowledge officer. There are approximately eight to twelve people
staffing the core KM team, with six being permanent and dedicated
resources.

The World Bank

At the World Bank, the knowledge-sharing program is decentralized

and does not have a central pool of resources. It is a matrix structure
with regions and networks (thematic in nature) that hold the
resources. The manager of knowledge and learning services is
responsible for consolidating knowledge and learning within the
decentralized structure of the World Bank. Each vice president’s
office has a person who coordinates KM resources. This results in a
decentralized system of knowledge management. There is a small
coordination unit, but the real work takes place in the vice president’s
offices.

Support Roles

As mentioned in the first chapter of this report, an objective of this

study was to understand whether or not KM should be approached
differently if innovation is the desired outcome. Previous APQC
studies have established the importance of identifying and
leveraging support roles in KM activities. However, this study team
noted more emphasis and leveraging of the role of subject matter
expert and information specialist to support KM for innovation than
other types of KM activities. In particular, the roles of subject matter
expert and information specialist (or librarian) are more critical in
successfully supporting innovation with knowledge management
than other types of KM activities.

Subject Matter Experts

The importance of subject matter experts (SMEs) to support
knowledge management activities is not a new finding. In fact, it has
been well established by previous APQC studies that SMEs play a
key role in many KM activities, such as communities and the
validation of content. In many instances, SMEs enable the KM
approach because of their experiential knowledge. Based on the
study team’s understanding of the importance of SMEs and knowing
that expertise is a critical component of innovation, one of the focus
areas of this study is the role of the SMEs to support knowledge
management in the innovation process.

Boeing Rocketdyne

The subject matter expert roles at Boeing Rocketdyne include

documenting and communicating KM and acting as a resource.
SMEs are used primarily as a resource or as facilitators. The specific
responsibilities for SMEs at Boeing Rocketdyne are to:

disseminate knowledge as process directors and process

leaders,

act as technical experts within each process as a resource

for questions and direction concerning the KM for which they
are subject matter experts,

represent the best of Boeing Rocketdyne technical expertise

as technical fellows,

sit on senior advisory boards to provide historical

perspectives and maintenance of up-to-date awareness of
external developments,

act as consultants with integrated product teams or programs

for domain- specific knowledge and maintenance of up-to-
date awareness of external developments,
 act as reviewers on proposals for business capture
knowledge, and

document and transmit knowledge.

Millennium

The MyBiology database described in Chapter 5 would not be

possible without the support of subject matter experts. The scientific
findings capture process clearly defines the roles for the SMEs and
the roles to support the SMEs. To help foster the process, the
scientific findings capture process employs intermediaries to reduce
the burden of knowledge sharing for scientists, the SMEs.
Knowledge intermediaries have integrated into the R&D organization
and regularly attend lab meetings in oncology, proteomics, and
target advancement. There are three full-time knowledge
intermediaries, and the ratio to scientists is 200 to 1.

The knowledge intermediaries serve as a resource for scientists and

direct them to sources of information, as well as provide assistance
with Web sites, IT solutions, and biology resources. Knowledge
intermediaries gather and summarize scientific findings by collecting
PowerPoint presentations, Excel spreadsheets, and other electronic
files with associated explanatory information about the experiment
and its conclusion. Knowledge intermediaries also create summary
information, confirm with the scientist if their information is accurate,
and publish information to the document repository, Dossier.

Information Specialist

The corporate information specialist (or librarian) plays a much

greater role in scientific and technical knowledge management
among this study’s partners than in many other organizations APQC
has studied. Typically, the library is responsible for organizing,
maintaining, and providing reference for both the physical and
electronic library collections. At both the 3M and NASA JPL site
visits, an information specialist (or librarian) presented information
about how the daily activities in information services relate to and
support the organizational KM goals and objectives.

3M

The “Access and Reuse of Knowledge” section in Chapter 5 of this

report describes the vision and mission of 3M’s library and
information services. 3M’s library and information services provides
staff and services to support and maintain both the internal and
external knowledge collections, and it is one of the major resources
for leveraging internal and external knowledge within 3M.

3M has several internally-developed repositories and systems

including:

a technical skills database,

technical reports,

technical notebooks,

records of invention corporate archive,

chemical registry,

3M patents,

3M published papers and presentations, and

a lab forum.

The laboratory notebooks, records of invention, chemical registry,

and technical reports are primarily looking at the documentation of
internal R&D and technical knowledge. The technical skills database
and the lab forum serve as mechanisms for people to connect with
each other globally. The patents and published papers and
presentations database are knowledge that 3M publishes externally.
These tools and resources are used to make it possible for 3M to
successfully leverage internal knowledge.

The technical report database started in the early 1960s and has
been re-engineered many times since then. Updated monthly, it
currently has more than 150,000 technical report summaries that
document 3M’s technical efforts from 1963 to present. It is available
via the Internet or Lotus Notes.

The 3M technical skills database connects 3M employees on a

global scale. It allows a user to search the self-described skill of 3M
Tech Forum members and is considered confidential. All 3M Tech
Forum members are encouraged to submit their skills into this
database. This database allows a person to build his or her personal
network or identify fellow technical society members. It, too, is
available via the Internet or Lotus Notes. Each profile asks for area
of expertise, current or significant experience, and vocational
interests.

The 3M patents database is a compendium of information on patents

issued worldwide to 3M and its subsidiaries. In 2002 it contained
approximately 13,000 patent records since 1925. The database was
built up using information from Derwent, and it receives weekly
updates. Users can see abstracts or the full patent, and in some
cases can see an image of the patent as well.

3M also has access to external knowledge through its libraries,

library and information services reference services, and the 3M
electronic libraries.

Library and information services is in the business of helping people

solve information problems. One way it does so is through its
enhanced technical awareness program. For example, it developed
a type of digital file cabinet for customers who request help
managing their information. The file cabinets facilitate archiving,
searching, and sharing search results and knowledge. They also
facilitate copyright compliance, which is critical for 3M. Each of these
databases has an editor, who is a technical or businessperson
responsible for reviewing the updates.

The library and information services function also provides

visualization tools (e.g., information analysis and data mining). Data
visualization is the process of finding meaningful patterns in data and
creating a visual representation (e.g., a map) of it. The data sets
used can include patents, technical literature, internal reports,
newswires, and Web sites.

NASA JPL

In addition to providing many of the same type of resources and

services as 3M’s library and information services team, the NASA
library is also a key facilitator of story telling at NASA JPL. NASA
JPL’s information specialist is responsible for initiating the formal
story telling activity within the library. Besides providing the physical
space for the speaker and guests to participate, the information
specialist is responsible for coordinating and communicating story
telling activities. Coordinating activities involves:

identifying and recruiting potential speakers,

assisting speakers with topic selection, and

mentoring speakers on the difference between presenting

and telling a story.

To ensure a successful beginning to the story telling activities in the

library, the retiring director of NASA-JPL was selected as a speaker.
Since the original speaker, the librarians have maintained an interest
in story telling by assisting speakers with topic selection and catchy
titles such as “Women are from Mars, Too” and “Green Eggs and
Ham: JPL Style with Salsa.” The librarians also assist with
communicating the story telling activities by e-mail announcements
and posting flyers around the JPL campus.
The librarians look for certain criteria and characteristics from the
story tellers and their stories. Story tellers may come from
recommendations or cold calls to well-known NASA JPL employees
(identified through their reputation, position, or news articles). They
must represent a cross-section of NASA JPL current and former
employees, and they must represent a cross-section of scientists,
engineers, administrators, and managers.

The primary criterion for the story itself is that the story teller must
tell a personal story based on their experience. The story may be set
in the past, present, or future. The librarians encourage the story
tellers to be as creative as possible in their story, both in the manner
in which they present the story and how they stage it (e.g., historical
story or fictional, light-hearted or serious).
KM Budgets and Funding
In examining best-practice organizations, APQC identified five
stages common to successful KM implementation. Funding and
budget allocation for KM varies across the five stages, moving from
indirect, informal funding in the early stages through increased
centralized budgeting to a realignment of resources whereby
business units take up more of the budget load in the later stages.

For this study, formal KM processes have been in place at the

partner organizations for more than a year with a majority of the
partners indicating between three and 10 years. Additionally, more
than half the study partners have an annual KM budget greater than
$1 million.

3M

3M has begun to use what it calls a federation model. The two full-
time KM practitioners provide the KM expertise, and the business
units pay for any KM projects.

Boeing Rocketdyne

The 2002 budget for formal KM team is $400,000. Discretionary

investment (overhead) supports about half a dozen full-time people,
and each organization provides participants on a part-time basis.
The executive council oversees funding for KM projects that comes
from overhead budgets. There is also a $100,000 pilot project
funded by its Space Shuttle Main Engine program.

NASA JPL

Most of NASA’s KM budget is the funding required for information

technology systems by the chief information officer. In 2001 the
annual allocations were approximately $500,000 to support the
lessons learned information system redesign, the development of an
experts’ directory to locate people with specific expertise, and the
development of an enterprise portal. Additionally, these activities
require annual operating costs of $250,000.

The NASA KM budget for 2002 and 2003 covers the following
activities:

expand portal prototype to an internal pilot,

deploy collaborative tools for teams,

deploy NASA public portal and Web redesign, and

capture design knowledge and decisions.

The annual allocations will be more than $4 million, with annual

operating costs being almost $1.5 million. Most of the expenditures
are to deploy the NASA public portal and Web redesign in 2003.

The World Bank

The World Bank follows a decentralized process for the allocation of

resources to KM initiatives. All the vice presidential units, in
particular the networks (the thematic or sectoral part of the World
Bank), allocate resources for KM. Sector boards (for each of the
sectors) allocate resources for KM to the various thematic groups
and advisory services. They are contracted to deliver a number of
outputs by the sector boards. The World Bank Institute does not
allocate funds to others. The institute has a budget to coordinate KM
activities across the organization.
Information Technology
With Chapter 5 of this report providing a detailed overview of how the study partners
organizations are leveraging information technology to enable project and work
processes related to innovation, the purpose of this section is two-fold:
1. to provide a summary of the tools partners are using to create and share
knowledge and

2. to understand how the requirements for information technology are different

if innovation is the desired outcome of the KM activities.

Tools Used by Study Partners

Figure 7 (page 94) identifies the study partners’ tools for creating and sharing new
knowledge. Specifically, several of the partners cited e-Rooms as a collaboration tool
and Documentum as a content management tool.

Figure 7: Tools to Create and Share Knowledge at Study partners

1. As for information technology requirements being different to support

innovation, the study team made three observations

2. The individuals working in the R&D and technology field are tech savvy and
want maximum functionality in the information technology tools.

3. Asynchronous information technology supports the reflective and intellectual

personality characteristics of scientist and engineers.

4. One size does not fit all. Most partners provide a suite of KM-enabling
technologies to best fit the need of the end user.

Boeing Rocketdyne has several tools in place to enhance the flow, capture, and
transfer of information and knowledge in support of innovation. Some of these tools
include a common product database; an implementation of an electronic work
instructions process; and the development of the Boeing Rocketdyne build-to-
package system to enhance the flow, capture, transfer, and sharing of information.
Other tools follow.

Team notebooks (electronic) capture and sharing information among project

teams.
Commercial tools such as CoBrain and AskMe capture and disseminate
communications from experts.

Lessons learned records are maintained by the Boeing Rocketdyne Technical

Information Center.

Modeling and simulation tools in the Boeing Rocketdyne factory capture the
as-is processes and enable integration of the animation into explicit online
work.
KM Measures
A broad perspective on KM does not always provide immediate returns or
good quantitative benefits, which requires an educational step prior to
evaluating the longer term benefits in more subjective ways. Sometimes we
just aren’t smart enough to evaluate the benefits.
—Robert Carman, program manager, Boeing Rocketdyne

The primary way the study partners are demonstrating the impact of knowledge-
sharing activities on innovation is through anecdotal evidence, captured in success
stories. Like Boeing Rocketdyne, many organizations struggle with quantifying the
impact of KM and rely on anecdotal evidence or success stories to communicate
the value of knowledge-sharing activities to the organization.

Success Stories

For three of the study partners, the answer to the measures challenge is an
emphasis on sharing success stories. Sharing successes helps to motivate and
energize the organization to do more. 3M, Boeing Rocketdyne, and the World Bank
make it part of their culture to encourage people to share their knowledge about
what works through these stories. This achieves a two-fold goal: not only do these
successes get shared, but they also support the culture of knowledge sharing,
which encourages others to share as well.

3M

3M’s 100-year history is filled with success stories. Some are about individuals,
such as Dick Drew, who invented Scotch™ tape; Art Fry, who invented Post-it
notes™; and Carl Miller, who invented thermographic office copying. However,
there are also team success stories, such as with the Surface Conditioning
Division team.

The Surface Conditioning Division team was involved in an effort to revamp its
entire new product introduction process. The results of its efforts included a
reduction in cycle time; improved metrics and tools that resulted in better resource
utilization, increased productivity, and sales; and a process map. However,
perhaps the most important outcome of this effort was a stronger partnership with
its vendors. After a year of working with a particular vendor, the vendor called with
a suggestion for a partnership on a new material. This wouldn’t have happened
without the change in the nature of the relationship.

Boeing Rocketdyne
In 1999 Boeing Rocketdyne found itself in a unique position to develop a new
product. Using collaborative technology, Rocketdyne employed a virtual team
called VC3 (Virtual Cross-Value-Chain, Creative Collaborative) that was
geographically dispersed. This team, composed of world-class professionals from
three organizations, focused on a key set of eight core competencies necessary to
accomplish the task of creating a new type of rocket engine that could compete
cost-wise with what international competitors were offering. It created one of the
first two new, liquid-fueled rocket engines in the United States in more than 25
years. The success of this team has been documented in several articles and
journals since then and is one of the reasons this organization was selected as a
best-practice organization for this study.

The World Bank

It could be said that the World Bank pioneered success stories. Through the work
of its thematic groups (i.e., communities of practice), the World Bank has collected
hundreds of success stories around the world. In one example in the country of
Mauritania, the World Bank leveraged $1.5 million in lending and approximately
$350,000 in staff time to attract $100 million in private investment (equivalent to 10
percent of the country’s GDP), expanded telephone penetration 15-fold from five to
75 lines per thousand inhabitants, and created 300 micro-enterprises and 2,000
infor- mal sector jobs in areas like pre-paid card sales and telephone repairs.

Although capturing and communicating success stories will help support a

knowledge-sharing culture, it will not provide the quantitative measures most
senior managers need to support and fund KM investments. In order to understand
the impact of knowledge-sharing activities, the KM core team must develop, track,
and report a set of KM measures related to valued organization outcomes. If an
organization advocates a particular measurement framework for reporting results,
such as a performance or balanced scorecard approach, a similar set of measures
should be developed for the KM activities.

APQC’s Input-to-Output Model

Another measurement framework for developing KM metrics is APQC’s input- to-

output model (Figure 8).
 Figure 8: APQC’s Input-to-output Model

The model illustrates how to trace KM activities (input and process) to impacts
(outputs) and related measures (outcomes). The inputs are the KM-specific
resources provided, such as staff, participants time, and IT support. The process
measures are the activities that take place in the context of the KM initiatives, such
as number of lessons learned shared, the number of project teams using KM
approaches, the number and participation of employees in communities of
practice, and similar activity measures. The outputs include productivity, quality,
and cost measures such as time and money saved or errors avoided. The
outcomes are the indicators that the organization measures itself by such as
successful missions, products successfully launched, and profitability. By
delineating the desired impacts at the end of the process, one can define specific
measures to monitor the related activities to demonstrate how KM activities
produce results.

Figure 9 provides a sample of other measures for the input-to-output model for
each of APQC’s KM Approaches: self-service +, networks and communities, and
the transfer of best practices.

Figure 9: APQC’s KM Approaches and Sample Measurements

Some of the partner organizations listed the following KM activity measures:

3M—the number of Tech Forum chapters, chapter membership, and

participation in tech forum events and chapters;
 Millennium—Web usage analysis and meetings; and

Wells Fargo—documentation, written articles, town halls, process

improvement, project requirement definition, networking, information and
resource access, and communication.

Although many of the partners do identify and track process measures for the
different KM approaches in their organizations, the process measures were not
being connected to specific output or outcome measures. Therefore, the next
evolution in measuring KM activities for the partner organizations is to correlate
process measures to outcome or output measures.
Lessons Learned About KM Infrastructure
Through the site visits, the study partners shared many lessons
learned from their KM journey. Although expressed in a variety of
ways, the lessons learned can be summarized as follows.

A governance structure is important to ensure KM activities

do not occur in isolation. However, the governance structure
must not be bureaucratic and must be accepted by the
organization.

Someone must be accountable for KM activities. Most likely

it will be a small core team leveraging support roles.

Balance long-term desires (capturing knowledge) with local

requirements (specific solutions to a problem).

KM solutions need to be tailored for each organization’s

business and culture.

KM should not compete with other strategic initiatives within

an organization. It is best for KM to establish a partnership
and support strategic initiatives.

Focus on the process rather than tools. Business units are

sometimes eager to jump to a technology solution, only to
find that they are enabling a process that is not well
articulated or controlled.

Communication should be relentless and inspiring.

Don’t expect overnight paybacks. Once embedded, KM

requires changes and change takes time to take root.
Part 2: Partner Organization
Case Studies
3M

The Boeing Company, Rocketdyne Division

NASA and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Millennium Pharmaceuticals

The World Bank

Index
3M
Headquartered in St. Paul, Minn, 3M (i.e., Minnesota Mining and
Manufacturing) is a $16 billion diversified technology company with a
presence in the health care, safety, electronics, telecommunications,
industrial, and consumer and office markets[12]. It has more than 40
business units organized into the following markets: transportation,
graphics, and safety; health care; industrial; consumer and office;
electronics and communications; and specialty materials. 3M has
operations in more than 60 countries. Approximately 50 percent of its
65,000 employees reside outside the United States.

In 2002 3M celebrated “a century of innovation” since its founding.

Defining Knowledge Management and
Innovation
3M defines knowledge management as a central competency that
enables every corporate initiative, business process, and individual
employee to maximize customer satisfaction, sustainable profitability,
and growth. 3M defines innovation as the process whereby creative
ideas become of value to the company. Geoff Nicholson, retired vice
president of international technical operations for 3M, defines
innovation as the transformation of knowledge into money. The
following quotes offer three perspectives on innovation at 3M:

Innovation is the key to growth because it delights our

customers and it’s the basis for long-lasting customer loyalty.
—Lou Lehr, retired chairman and CEO

Innovation is a process, not just a creative idea. An innovative

person can take a creative idea (or product) and be successful
in the marketplace.
—William Coyne, retired senior vice president of, 3M, research
and development (R&D)

Innovation is taking what a customer may need or perceive s/he

needs and identifying it with a technology to answer that need.
—Paul Guehler, vice president of R&D

[12]www.mmm.com, retrieved 12/01/02.

KM and Innovation Best Practices
1. 3M expects its five corporate performance initiatives to
drive improvement in productivity and efficiency and help
the organization focus strongly on customer solutions.
Those five initiatives are:

2. Six Sigma,

3. 3M Acceleration,

4. eProductivity,

5. sourcing effectiveness, and

6. indirect cost control.

When asked what has made 3M successful in KM and innovation,

Barry Dayton, manager of 3M’s knowledge transformation program
office, stated the organization’s five corporate performance
initiatives, its ability to leverage its many technology platforms in its
major market areas, and the company’s culture drive innovation.

The company also leverages approximately 35 different technology

platforms into its major market areas and subsequent subdivided
markets. It has a global supply operation designed to meet the
needs of its global customers. All business units focus on customer
needs.
Culture and Communicating The Guiding
Principles, Objectives, and Behaviors
3M uses KM to support its five corporate performance initiatives
rather than having it compete with them. Used this way, KM provides
more lift to 3M by supporting the drivers of change already
underway.

3M is a diversified company knitted together by common platforms

that are intended to create a competitive advantage through:

shared world-class technology;

shared customers, channels, and brands;

shared manufacturing;

shared global infrastructure; and

a culture of innovation.

As shown in Figure 10, 3M’s predominant business model is to draw

on one or more of four corporate platforms for business unit to
address customer needs.
 Figure 10: 3M’s Business Model

According to Steve Webster (vice president of R&D, transportation,

graphics, and safety), 3M turns technology into businesses. The
company has a number of technologies that it believes are strong,
particularly materials, processes, and systems integration. Using
these basic technology platforms, combined with innovation and
commercialization, allows 3M to focus on high-growth markets.

Innovation at 3M starts with a connection between a customer need

and a technology to fill that need. 3M calls that the first step in the
innovation process, and recognizing the fit between a customer need
and a technology is key to the process. Commercialization involves
putting those two pieces together and turning them into a product,
and it requires a different set of mental skills from that first part of the
process. This is the fundamental way 3M has built and continues to
build its businesses.

At 3M, new product innovation is viewed as an organic growth cycle.

And what happens after a product is launched is very important to
the company in order to expand the customer base. Additionally,
through the post-launch phase of the product, the company learns
more about the customer’s needs. Also, there are technology
changes and external forces that impact the post-launch phase of
the product life cycle.

If the company makes the right connections between the customer

and new technology, it will send itself around the cycle again. It can
become an upward spiral of continued new growth and continued
new products based on continually learning what the customer
needs.

According to Webster, all of the successful products that built 3M

come from addressing unarticulated customer needs. That is, they
come from having the insight into what the customer needs before
the customer realizes that need.

Because of its size, structure, and diversified nature, 3M can be a

confusing place for its customers. This is a collaboration issue for
3M. It believes people have thought of 3M as 50 smaller companies
under one corporate umbrella. The organization now finds that many
of its customers want 3M to operate as one entity. As a result, 3M is
finding many ways it can leverage skills and capabilities in the
company by trying to transcend the previous, fragmented mentality.
This is one of the drivers for the involvement of KM in the company.

Promoting Knowledge Creation and Innovation

3M uses stories to celebrate its heroes of innovation who

passionately pursue an idea or find ideas in unexpected places by
applying an idea generated in one context to a new context.
Managers facilitate knowledge sharing by encouraging networking
and communicating the necessity to share and network to be
successful.

According to Webster, 3M has five key practices that promote the

culture and guiding principles and behavior desired in the company.
1. Freedom and individual initiative—3M has a 15 percent
rule in which any person in a laboratory may spend 15
 percent of his or her time on any idea that could be a
possible business for 3M. This rule is a tradition within the
company’s laboratories. Although this time is not tracked,
the rule is so embedded in the culture that everyone
understands that it really represents the freedom and
encouragement to generate and develop new ideas. All of
3M’s hero stories originated with these individual ideas,
and the company goes to great pains to encourage them to
continue. Managers and technical directors are instructed
to respect the concept and push the ideas through to
development when brought before them.

The company has two programs that support innovation

with small grants. The Genesis process involves an annual
review of idea proposals generated during that 15 percent
of time. If selected, the scientist receives a grant worth
$40,000 to $150,000. The Discovery process is a
continuous process throughout the year. It involves
granting seed money to scientists to develop an idea for
presentation before a peer review committee. Both of these
programs represent a second chance at funding for a
project if an idea is not originally approved for
development. The two programs represent approximately
$1 million out of the total $1.1 billion budget for R&D.

In addition to the 15 percent rule, 3M’s chairman and CEO,

Jim McNerney, presented the company with his 2X/3X
challenge. He wants to see two times the number of ideas
at the front end of the process and three times the number
of winners resulting from the process.

2. Platforms—3M’s approximately 35 technology platforms

are the critical resource for solutions to customers’ needs.
According to 3M, no other company has such a rich and
diverse technology portfolio.
 3. Connections—3M’s unique ability to leverage and
combine multiple technologies to create novel solutions to
customers’ problems is a key driver for the company’s
growth. Its scientists are constantly networking to identify
new combinations, such as microreplication with abrasives
and polymer processing with wound management.

One issue facing 3M is how to better connect its scientists

with its customers’ needs. One way the company tries to
address this is by encouraging the marketing and sales
people to take scientists along on their visits with 3M
customers.

3M is beginning to deploy Design for Six Sigma (DFSS)

throughout the company. The voice of the customer will be
more systematically obtained through this process.

4. Customer focus—3M’s employees generally have the

customers’ needs and interests very high in their minds.
Many of 3M’s most well-known innovation stories include
the scientists’ direct relationships with their customers,
identifying their customers’ needs sometimes before they
have recognized the needs themselves and developing
new products to meet their needs.

5. Everyone is a business builder—3M expects all of its

employees to understand the business they are in, have a
relationship with their customers, and think about building
the business, not just developing great science. Everyone
at 3M feels the responsibility to team with others to develop
and sell profitable products and services that delight 3M’s
customers.

Organizational Barriers

Everyone puts up barriers, either deliberately or inadvertently. 3M

tries to dismantle these barriers by making knowledge sharing an
expectation of its employees. Anyone promoted to staff, division, or
corporate scientist level has as an expectation of their job that they
are sharing information and processes with peers and business
units. Webster states that it is very difficult to reach the higher levels
in the 3M technical communities unless you share information and,
therefore, are well-known across the organization. It is an absolute
expectation of job promotion.

The other key to knowledge sharing is to not have any explicit

barriers. Rewards and recognition systems can become barriers by
encouraging people to hold ideas and knowledge close rather than
share them.

Rewards and Recognition for Innovation

Because 3M believes that some reward and recognition systems can

actually impede innovation and knowledge sharing, it has developed
a reward and recognition system that relies primarily on peer
recognition. None of 3M’s rewards have a direct monetary
component. However, the organization has a wide array of direct and
indirect awards to motivate its employees. Examples of some of the
more direct awards include the Golden Step award that recognizes
the whole team for a successful product launch, the Circle of
Technical Excellence award that recognizes major business-building
technical achievement, and the Carlton Society award that is for
lifetime technology-building achievement.

Indirectly, one of the organization’s criteria for promotion is

knowledge sharing and successful project leadership. Knowledge
sharing and creation is a promotion criterion at senior technical
levels. Successful project leadership includes early recognition that
an idea would not work and shutting down the project, lessons
learned, and if the project increased 3M’s knowledge base in any
way.
Fostering Collaboration
Webster attributes 3M’s success over the past century to the formal
and informal mechanisms and norms the company implemented
over the years to share information and foster innovation. That
success starts with the technology centers where people work on
products like reflective polarizers (to manage light in a display panel
by transmitting one polarization to the viewer and reflecting the other
polarization back into the display). Nobody anticipated the invention
of this optical film. But the formula for collaboration 3M has
developed is designed to produce this kind of result, and knowledge
sharing is critical to that formula.

Over the years, 3M has implemented some very explicit mechanisms

that allow its employees to connect with internal and external
customers. These mechanisms include its Tech Forum, technology
platforms, the 3M education and learning site, Lotus Notes
databases, the Idea Hopper, staff rotation, peer recognition, Six
Sigma, story telling, and library and information services.

Tech Forum

The Tech Forum is an internal organization focused on innovation

through interaction and the nurturing of connections. Through
networking and communication, the forum fosters an environment of
creativity and cooperation that leads to innovation and growth. The
forum celebrated its 50th anniversary in 2001. It is the center of
technical interchange at 3M, and its slogan is “innovation through
interaction.”

The forum is organized into 35 to 40 chapters (or communities) that

focus on technologies, skills, and interests across the company. The
greater technical community includes manufacturing and
engineering. Membership in one or more of these chapters is a great
way to network and share ideas across the company. Larger
chapters have monthly meetings, whereas others don’t meet quite as
often. These meetings involve networking and speakers (internal
and/or external). All forum meetings are filmed, indexed, and
archived. Membership in these chapters is voluntary, and every
technical person across the organization (not just R&D) is
considered a member. Chapter leadership is encouraged and
thought of kindly in performance evaluations. For new employees,
these chapters are one method of connecting with others in the
organization with similar skills and interests. The chapters foster
information and technology sharing across divisions, which is critical
to 3M’s survival. Membership allows an employee to look outside his
or her 3M industry at different technologies and bring them in to
develop new products.

The Tech Forum senate convenes to discuss 3M issues and

direction. Each business unit or laboratory assigns a Tech Forum
senator. There is also a Technical Council comprised of the technical
directors (leaders) of all the technical laboratories. The people
involved in this council and the executive council ensure the
company is thinking about customer needs and growth opportunities
all the time.

Technology Platforms

Listed on the technology resource network on 3M’s Web site, these

platforms are restricted to Tech Forum members. However, all
technology-focused employees are forum members by definition.
This Web site is a key resource for new employees seeking
information on the company’s technology platforms (e.g., the
adhesives technology center). These intranet sites provide valuable
information on the people involved in the different platforms, history
of a platform, and specific technologies.

3M Education and Learning Site

This site contains more than 300 streaming videos available to

interested employees on a variety of topics (including technologies).
These videos include recordings of Tech Forum events and are
indexed. 3M plans to integrate it with the Technology Resource
Center.

Lotus Notes Databases

Whenever a new project is started with a team of three or more

people, a Lotus Notes database is set up as a team room and chat
space for storing documents, sharing information, etc. These
databases may be personal, corporate-specific, or technology-
specific, and thousands of these databases currently exist.

3M spends approximately $1.1 billion on R&D annually on about

7,000 people worldwide. Each of these people’s activities are
documented in a database. People with access to this database can
easily learn what anyone is doing, what the programs are, and what
the new ideas are.

Encouraging people to explore different databases outside of the

one they “live” in is an issue for 3M. Necessity more often leads
people into different databases rather than curiosity. In any case, just
making the databases available is key.

3M restricts some proprietary databases to specific users.

Idea Hopper

This is a relatively new mechanism for sharing ideas at 3M.

Launched in August 2002, the Idea Hopper is a database where
people can store ideas that have not yet passed a concept review.
The hopper is available to people across the company to view. Once
approved, the idea is moved into the Acceleration database, and
people can access it to review those ideas that do succeed and
progress into actual programs.

Staff Rotation
3M uses staff rotation as another mechanism to promote knowledge
sharing. There is a lot of mobility around the company, and
international assignments are available, especially for high-potential
individuals. Historically, job rotation has been rather haphazard, but
going forward HR plans to put more structure around it.

Recognition

People share ideas partly for peer recognition. Peers always know
who to go to in the organization. Through this recognition, people
receive rewards (but not monetary) for their work. That translates
into things like the corporate Technical Circle of Excellence award.
Winners receive a trip to the 3M resort retreat center in northern
Minnesota. There are some specific recognition programs that have
information sharing and peer recognition built into them. For
technical promotions, the ability of somebody to work with others
inside and outside their laboratory is very much a part of the
promotion criteria, especially at the higher levels.

Connecting its scientists with its customers is a hot issue in the

company currently. With 40 different business units making 50,000
products, 3M is more concerned with building businesses by
satisfying customer needs with innovative products than with science
for its own sake. With a reward system, employees want to get in the
face of customers. All the 3M heroes have a customer-related new
product story. However, there are some barriers. For example, not all
technical people are customer savvy when they come in the door,
and 3M provides some training for the development of these skills.

Six Sigma

3M hosts a week-long Six Sigma symposium in the spring of each

year to share best practices. It also holds a Super Y conference,
which is another event to share best practices in Six Sigma projects.
One of the challenges facing 3M’s knowledge transfer program office
is how to support the thousands of Six Sigma projects and
encourage best-practice transfer. 3M believes that using KM
principles in its Six Sigma projects will enable a lessons learned
process to ensure the use of lessons learned.

Story Telling

Story telling is a cultural expectation at 3M. Its heroes are expected

to tell their stories, which supports the sociology and culture of the
organization.

Library and Information Services

The vision of library and information services is to “increase 3M’s

productive use of knowledge to accelerate profitable growth.” Its
mission, or purpose, is to support corporate goals by enabling 3M
employees worldwide to more effectively create, share, and use
knowledge through three businesses:
1. information research and information management
consulting,

2. access to information research through libraries and

electronic resources, and

3. bridges to internal knowledge.

3M’s Atlas Electronic Library is the research portal for finding

information about 3M and the outside world. It grants 3M employees
access to what they need to know about 3M and provides a virtual
help desk service for each of its resources. Library and information
services (LIS) has people dedicated to providing guidance and/or
service for each of its resources.

LIS tracks many of the services it delivers on a monthly basis. A

recent report showed that use of some of the internal databases is
down from the previous two years, perhaps due to the transitions
taking place within the company. Additionally, LIS interviews its
clients on an ad hoc basis to ask questions such as “How long did it
take you to find the document or answer you were looking for?” or
“Did you find the information you were seeking?” LIS does have
anecdotal evidence that their resources are helpful, especially to 3M
employees who reside outside of St. Paul and/or are new to their
position with 3M.

The search feature and the current awareness feature are the two
primary methods for encouraging people to use the library and its
knowledge repositories. The current awareness feature allows an
LIS staff member to set up an ongoing search of new reports in an
area of interest for a 3M employee that is pushed to him or her on a
regular basis.

LIS views KM as a means to leverage knowledge—explicit and tacit,

internal and external—to increase productivity and innovation.
Leveraging Internal Knowledge
LIS is one of the major resources for leveraging 3M’s internal
knowledge, in addition to the learning center, communities of
practice (e.g., Tech Forum, Marketing Forum, and the executive
conference), internal knowledge repositories, the intranet, and Lotus
Notes discussion databases and team rooms.

3M has several internally-developed knowledge repositories and

systems including a technical skills database, technical reports,
technical notebooks, records of invention corporate archive,
chemical registry, 3M patents, 3M published papers and
presentations, and a Lab Forum. These are primarily for R&D
knowledge.

Figure 11 illustrates how these different databases fit together. The

laboratory notebooks, records of invention, chemical registry, and
technical reports are primarily looking at the documentation of
internal R&D and technical knowledge. The technical skills database
and the Lab Forum serve as mechanisms for people to connect with
each other globally. The patents and published papers and
presentations database are knowledge that 3M publishes externally.
These are all tools and resources that are used together make it
possible for 3M to successfully leverage internal knowledge.
 Figure 11: 3M’s Internal Technical Knowledge Repositories and
Systems

The technical report database started in the early 1960s and has
been re-engineered many times since then. Updated monthly, it
currently has more than 150,000 technical report summaries
documenting 3M’s technical efforts from 1963 to present. If an
employee uses the intranet to access the database, links to other
databases and repositories (e.g., technical skills database, 3M
records on invention archives, and 3M technical note- books) are
available on the front page. This allows the user to access
information about an author and/or related documents from the other
databases.

Not all documents are in English. However, the cover page is always
in English. The library does have language conversion software
available to its users.

The 3M technical skills database connects 3M employees on a

global scale. It allows a user to confi- dentially search the self-
described skill profiles of 3M Tech Forum members. (All 3M Tech
Forum members are encouraged to submit their skills into this
database.) This database allows a person to build his or her
personal network or identify fellow technical society members. Each
profile asks for area of expertise, current or significant experience,
and vocational interests.
The database is updated daily. Additionally, as soon as someone is
hired into the technical organization, that person receives a welcome
e-mail from Library and Information Systems. It provides information
on available resources and encourages them to submit their skills
into the database immediately. About 30 percent of the new hires
respond right away. On a quarterly basis, people who have not
registered with the skills database receive an e-mail asking them to
add their information. If a person’s profile is in the database, he or
she receives an annual e-mail listing current skills and asking for
confirmation that they are up-to-date. Library and information
systems does not have a vetting process for the skills database.
However, within the Tech Forum, there is a fair amount of peer
pressure. That pressure, in combination with the collegiality and
sense of community, serves as its own vetting process.

There is an “ask this expert” button on each record that, when

clicked, creates an e-mail form. Library and information systems is
tracking the use of this button to determine if it works; the feedback
received so far indicates that it is.

Use of this resource is higher than that of the technical report

database. The 3M patents database includes information on patents
issued worldwide to 3M and its subsidiaries. Currently, it contains
approximately 13,000 patent records from 1925 to present. The
database was built up using information from Derwent[13], and it
receives updates weekly. Users can see abstracts or the full patent
and, in some cases, can see an image of the patent as well.

[13]Derwent collates, abstracts, classifies, and indexes documents

from 40 patent-issuing authorities and from more than 1,200
scientific journals and conference proceedings worldwide.
(www.derwent.com)
Leveraging External Knowledge
Sources for external knowledge at 3M include the learning center,
communities of practice, 3M libraries, library and information
systems reference services, and the 3M electronic library. Also, the
Tech Forum chapters bring in external speakers for their meetings.

Library and Information Systems is in the business of helping people

solve information problems. One way it does so is through its
enhanced technical awareness (ETA) program. Using this program,
it developed a type of digital file cabinet for customers who request
help managing their information. The file cabinets are Lotus Notes-
based and facilitate archiving, searching, and sharing search results
and knowledge. They also facilitate copyright compliance, which is
critical for 3M.

Other features include views based on abstract fields; meaningful

keywords can be added, full-text searching, and a page to explain
the database design and limitations. It is updated weekly with current
awareness input. Each of these databases has an editor, who is a
technical or business person responsible for reviewing the updates.

Library and information systems also provides visualization tools

(e.g., information analysis and data mining). Data visualization is the
process of finding meaningful patterns in data and creating a visual
representation (i.e., a map) of it. Large data sets can be explored
quickly, and new insights can be gained. Applications for data
visualization include intellectual property assessments, competitive
intelligence, technology assessments, R&D planning, and
benchmarking. The data sets used can include patents, technical
literature, internal reports, newswires, and Web sites.
Collaborative Environment
According to Humphrey, three key factors to having a successful
collaborative environment are climate, structure, and strategy. Based
on the Digenti Collaboration model[14] (Figure 12), climate includes
a positive, long-term shared vision; a flow between external inputs
and internal processing capability; and motivated but not survival-
anxious workers. Structure includes common technology platforms;
rewards for active participation in collaborative activities; and clear
metrics that communicate the benefits of collaboration. Strategy
includes a comprehensive, cross-organizational learning strategy;
alignment of individual, organizational, and cross-organizational
collaborative goals; and shared language, meaning, and boundary
objects. Humphrey rates 3M a “B” in terms of climate, a “D” in terms
of structure, and a “C+” for strategy. According to him, 3M’s
collaborative environment has been and continues to be one of its
real strengths as a company. This environment, coupled with the
strength of its technologies, enables 3M employees to continue to
meet multiple company needs.

Figure 12: Digenti Collaboration Model

Collaboration Model
3M is piloting the Digenti Collaboration Model because it shows the
necessity of boundary spanning, an element critical for success in an
organization as large and diversified as 3M. It also shows the
necessity for operating at multiple levels of the organization (e.g.,
individual, group, division, and corporate) simultaneously. As
employees make an impact in their group, they are invited or
requested to work on or lead division-level or corporate-level project
teams. Also, 3M employees who wish to move up in the organization
are required to work increasingly across the organization. For
example, a person may work in a division lab, but lead a Six Sigma
team with membership from four divisions and three staff groups.

In another example of collaboration, Tech Center employees are

evaluated by how many divisions they persuade to adopt a
technology platform into products (knowledge transfer from the lab to
the business). Tech Forum is another entry point into cross-
functional leadership positions through its chapter and committee
chairs and governing board positions.

[14]Dori Digenti and Peter Fritz. Collaboration, Complexity, and

Corporate Boundary Spanning: Building a Collaborative Learning
Network. Presentation for Systems Thinking in Action Conference,
October 2001.
Establishing Support Roles and Structures
3M has begun to use what it calls a federation model. Two full-time
KM practitioners, based in HR, lead and facilitate a cross-functional
corporate steering team to develop strategy and coordinate and align
3M’s wide array of KM resources and activities. This two-person
resource is becoming known as the Knowledge Transformation
Program Office. “Knowledge transformation” is becoming the 3M
term for KM. In addition to facilitating the steering team, the program
office is beginning to develop a process and toolkit for KM projects
with business units. The business units pay for any KM projects.

Awareness of KM as a discipline at 3M began in 2001. At that time,

Kay Grenz (vice president, HR) sponsored a thought leader panel,
which researched KM in the public domain. Using that research, the
panel developed a common KM approach. It also conducted an
assessment of the state of KM in the company looking at strengths,
opportunities, and strategies. In July 2001 the panel delivered a
white paper to Grenz indicating that the KM value proposition in 3M
was strong. Panel members included representatives from HR, R&D,
and other disciplines and business units in the company.

The panel found that KM was important to the technical community.

The panel often heared two questions from the work force: How can
we make it better? And how can we extend it to other parts of the
organization (functions and parts that are customer facing)?
Essentially, the request was to make existing systems more
integrated and cross functional. According to Dayton, this recognition
of the importance of knowledge sharing was more than enough to
get people to show up to the KM meetings.

3M now has a KM steering team composed of representatives from

various areas around the company (e.g., Six Sigma, IT, HR, library
and information services, and marketing). The steering team
developed six strategies for KM at 3M.
 1. Foster awareness and understanding of KM in the
organization.

2. Promote high value KM initiatives.

3. Leverage existing technology.

4. Develop KM methodology and processes.

5. Benchmark.

6. Maintain sustainability.

In September 2001 (before the six KM strategies were developed)

the team knew it needed to connect with the five corporate
performance initiatives in order to determine which ones they could
support with KM. Members of the team talked with the Six Sigma
leader about how KM could help him. They developed a plan for
collaboration between the two groups. This effort led to Six Sigma
representation on the KM steering team.

With approximately 2,500 Six Sigma projects running and large

numbers of best practices and lessons learned coming out of these
projects, large amounts of new, explicit knowledge and content are
being created. 3M must organize this information so it can be
retrieved and reused in order to prevent someone from reinventing
the wheel. The steering team provided the necessary guidance and
alignment for Six Sigma and corporate IT to develop a knowledge
replication and reporting database, which was launched in
September 2002. It is expected that the database will improve
resource allocation and cost savings for the organization, reduce
future project cycle times by reusing valuable knowledge, and help
link people to share tacit knowledge.

In December 2001 corporate marketing began a KM effort for 3M’s

Sales and Marketing Council to replicate KM best practices from the
R&D community and has partnered with the steering team and
program office to leverage their work.
Knowledge Validation

3M does not have a rigorous document management system across

the organization. The only areas where this system exists are those
where regulations, specifications, and standards require it, such as
pharmaceuticals. Otherwise, use of such a system is left up to the
individual businesses or communities. 3M admits to problems with
version control where there is no document management system.
Advancing Learning and Training Functions
Currently, 3M does not have a curriculum focused explicitly on
knowledge sharing and innovation. However, best practices sharing,
leaders teaching leaders, and “action learning” are becoming a big
part of 3M’s way of life. According to Dayton, action learning has
enormous effectiveness but its efficiency is low. And facilitative
learning is highly efficient but not very effective. Some combination
of the two is optimal. 3M has several action learning initiatives. For
instance, a process called Accelerated Business Alignment for
business teams allows them to work together to resolve particular
problems specific to their business and their jobs. In another
example, in the Accelerated Leadership Development Program
participants are teamed up with others from around the world and
given a boil-the-ocean problem to solve in 10 days. They present the
solution to the management operating committee and 3M’s CEO,
which means the stakes are very high for these individuals. The
CEO also uses the results of these projects to challenge his direct
reports to think outside the box. This furthers internal efforts to
develop leaders in 3M.

3M does not have a formal process or approach to capture lessons

learned and feed them back into training, but the CEO has been
championing leaders teaching leaders in all executive conferences
and council meetings.

Recruiting Strategies

3M looks for certain traits and characteristics in prospective future

innovators, such as creativity, broad interests, problem solving,
resourcefulness, self-motivating, energizing, and a strong work ethic.
3M’s HR department developed a handbook on the subject for its
recruiters and hiring managers.

The company is pursuing the following leadership attributes:

 charts the course,

raises the bar,

energizes others,

resourcefully innovates,

lives 3M values, and

delivers results.

3M considers these six leadership attributes—combined with

corporate knowledge, business acumen, and functional expertise—
to be its overall leadership model. The leadership attributes form the
core of the contribution and development summary of the
performance appraisal process used by the company.

3M’s values go back 100 years and created a social and cultural
structure based on sharing information rather than hoarding it. The
3M values are to satisfy customers with superior quality, value, and
service; provide investors an attractive return through sustained
quality and growth; respect the social and physical environment; and
be a company that employees are proud to be a part of.

3M’s recruiting strategies include long-term relationships with key

universities, specifically with key departments and faculty. Many
university students intern at 3M and gain critical early exposure to its
culture. 3M also leverages applied research funding for recruiting.
The intent is to get a faculty person working on a technology of
interest to 3M, put the best graduate students on that work, develop
a relationship with that graduate student, and then have him or her
come to St. Paul to interact with the 3M scientists. 3M also leverages
other university programs and services, including the placement
office. Early identification, assessment, and socialization to the 3M
culture is key. 3M typically has 300 to 400 interns on the St. Paul
campus, so its people get to know them very early on in their
careers.
Training for Sharing and Creating New Knowledge

Although it does not have a formal curriculum that trains new

employees in skills to share and create new knowledge, 3M does
have several programs in place designed to help its new hires
assimilate quickly to their new environment and begin using the
knowledge-sharing resources available to them right away. These
programs include new employee orientation, a two-day Tech Forum
orientation, and mentoring programs in the technical areas.

The two-day new employee orientation for technical employees is

the responsibility of the Tech Forum. Tech Forum offers formal and
informal mentoring (at group and individual levels) within its chapters
through membership. Ensuring this occurs on a global scale
continues to be a challenge for 3M, especially for those employees
located outside of St. Paul.
Examining Indicators Of Success and
Change
Historically, 3M has measured its success in terms of traditional NPD
metrics. The internal drive for innovation is documented by the sales
of new products. The organization has a goal that 35 percent of
sales coming from products that are new in the last four years. In
2001 that translated into $6.3 billion from the sales of new products.
Another goal is that 10 percent of sales come from year-old
products. This is important because products with high sales in the
first year typically turn out to be the big contributors. For 2001 this
translated into $1.8 billion from the sales of one-year-old products.

3M is working on metrics that occur on a lower level in order to

understand how to enter into new marketplaces. Much of the work in
the Acceleration initiative focuses on putting those kinds of metrics
and measures into place so that they ensure all the effort in new
products achieves the growth the company requires to be
successful.

Measures

3M measures the success of its knowledge management and

innovation practices using external and internal indicators. External
indicators include the percentage of total sales coming from new
products (i.e., 30 percent in the last four years), number of new
products per year, and number of patents per year. Internal
indicators include the number of products protected by patents,
measurement of the investment in different types of research (but
not pipeline measures), product modification (i.e., new products
related to existing products), and ROI by product category.

As mentioned earlier in this case study, story telling is a cultural

norm at 3M. During the site visit, the following success story was
shared with the study participants.
Surface Conditioning Division (SCD) Supply Chain
Model—A Case Study

The SCD was involved in an effort to revamp its entire new product
introduction process. Products range from the low tech (e.g., sand
paper) to high tech (e.g., disk surface and lens finishing products).
SCD needed to increase its speed to market by more than a factor of
three but didn’t know how to do this.

A cross-functional team was chartered to develop a solution. The

goal was to reduce its time-to-market from 18 months to an average
of four months, which would provide resource savings and increased
competitive advantage. SCD also wanted to change its business
relationship with vendors from one of a dollar transaction to a more
collaborative partnership. And it wanted to do a better job
incorporating the voice of the customer into new product decisions.
Finally, they wanted to use a systems approach and incorporate it
into the model.

By the fourth quarter of 2001, the average new product introduction

cycle was 2.5 months. SCD achieved its primary target of reduced
time-to-market in February 2002 by rolling out a new product in 28
days (from product conception to delivery to the marketplace).
Although this level of time-to-market won’t be a regular occurrence, it
is a huge benefit for SCD.

One of the key enabling factors in this effort was the change in the
nature of the relationship with a vendor. SCD asked one of its
packaging vendors how SCD could do a better job working together
with the vendor and help its business. The vendor suggested a
reduction in the types of packaging from more than 100 to
approximately 50. By making a generic packaging, it would save the
vendor huge amounts of inventory and production time. SCD cut the
number down to 12 unique packages using special labels for certain
products. The vendor saved approximately $1 million in 2001 over
the cost of serving 3M in previous years.
Another key enabling factor was that the team was formulated
globally because more than half the business in this division is
global. Therefore, the technologies necessary to support it were put
into place and made available for use.

One of the real bottlenecks in this process was the packaging

process, which needed to be revised. From an initial request for a
new package to delivery of that package was a six-month process. It
had been a serial process with 10 to 12 functions involved. By
coming up with a collaborative system (e.g., a Lotus Notes database
with online approvals), they were able to make it a parallel process.
This solution was borrowed from another 3M division and
customized for SCD.

The online database highlighted problems and barriers. SCD

employees were initially concerned had that they would be
reprimanded for these barriers. One of the ways SCD team leaders
reassured people was by telling them that compared to reducing the
cycle time from 18 to 2.5 months, taking a day off was not that big of
an issue. Another route they took was to have a community of
coaches during the rollout for about four months. The coaches
worked with team members to address their concerns.

The SCD team recognized several outcomes from re-engineering its

new product introduction process. A stronger partnership with its
vendors is the most important of those outcomes. After a year of
working with the aforementioned vendor, the vendor called with a
suggestion for a partnership on a new material. This wouldn’t have
happened without the change in the nature of the relationship.

Other outcomes included the reduction in cycle time; improved

metrics and tools that resulted in better resource utilization,
increased productivity, and sales; and a process map.

A team member that learned process mapping while at Intel led the
team through the exercise. The resulting map of the then-current
process illustrated all the possible areas where miscommunications,
process breakdowns, misdirected delivery, and derailment occurred.
Within two hours the team had a new map of what the process ought
to be like with the new system. This map could be shown to
executives and customer service representatives, who could see
immediately the benefit of moving to the new system.
Lessons Learned
3M admits it has its share of best practices not being replicated and
expensive systems not being fully utilized. Leaders of KM and
innovation within the organization attest to the relevance of the
knowledge triad: people, process, and technology. In many ways,
3M’s culture is its strongest asset and its biggest challenge. Its
diversity of businesses, geography, and technologies can make
knowledge sharing and transfer of best practices difficult.

Also, the importance of process understanding is a prevalent theme

in various KM initiatives. Business units are sometimes eager to
jump to a technology solution, only to find that they’re enabling a
process that is not well articulated or controlled. Or more importantly,
the organization’s culture does not support the technology solution
selected.

From an overall perspective, 3M continues to wrestle with how to

effectively position its KM effort in the midst of five aggressive
corporate initiatives. It is beginning to operationalize its notion that
KM is a foundational organizational competency that enables the
initiatives, business units, and employees to maximize customer
satisfaction and sustainable profitable growth. The federation model
of governance is a good fit for 3M’s culture, but time will tell if it can
effectively align and leverage its wide array of KM resources and
activities and established KM as a well- recognized discipline.

For 3M, the link between KM and innovation is embodied in one of

its favorite quotes: “Innovation is the transformation of knowledge
into money.” Innovation is definitely alive and well at 3M, but recently
it has not been converted to business growth at the rate expected by
its management and stockholders. It has launched a number of
programs and initiatives to stimulate more innovation and growth,
including 3M Acceleration, 2X/3X, and Design for Six Sigma (DFSS).
The lesson is that a delicate balance exists between process rigidity
and the chaotic “fuzzy front end” of innovation. 3M has learned that it
needs to adjust the balance toward a process mindset.
The Boeing Company, Rocketdyne Division
The Boeing Company is the world’s No. 1 commercial jet maker, and
its global reach includes customers in 145 countries, employees in
more than 60 countries, and operations in 26 U.S. states[15]. Its
commercial aircraft line includes the 767, the 747, and the best-
selling airliner in history, the 737. Military aircraft include the F/A-18
Hornet strike fighter, the F-15 Eagle fighter-bomber, the C-17
Globemaster III transport, and the AH-64D Apache helicopter.
Boeing’s space operations include communications satellites, Delta
rockets, and the space shuttle (with Lockheed). The company has
also purchased Hughes Electronics’ satellite operations. Recently,
Boeing has increased its unmanned aircraft efforts.

Fifty years ago, the first engine tests at the Santa Susana Field
Laboratory in California launched an era in propulsion innovation that
is the hallmark of the Rocketdyne Propulsion & Power business of
Boeing. Since the founding of Rocketdyne in 1955, the company has
evolved into a global leader in applied power. Rocketdyne was
established in Canoga Park, Calif. as a separate division of North
American Aviation Inc., which later became a part of Rockwell
International Corporation. In December 1996, Rocketdyne became
part of Boeing.
Defining Knowledge Management
Boeing Rocketdyne defines knowledge as a synthesis of information,
experience, process, and understanding in an individual and cultural
context. According to Robert Carman, a project manager at Boeing
Canoga Park, knowledge is also time and technology dependent. If
the latter changes, the context of how the knowledge is used also
changes. KM is a systematic approach to generating process and
product knowledge, as well as organizing and retaining the process
and product knowledge so that it can be effectively applied to
product improvements and future products. KM is also the
systematic process of finding, selecting, organizing, distilling, and
presenting information in a way that improves an employee’s
comprehension in a specific area of interest.

However, KM conveys the idea that knowledge outside the total

context in which it was formed can be translated and transferred to
someone else. This transfer is difficult to achieve without the
receptor having an understanding of underlying principles, as well as
theorems and context in which the knowledge was generated. All
these things must be captured if knowledge management is going to
work. Boeing Rocketdyne has numerous electronic database
collection systems that capture process and technology information
and sometimes knowledge, which enables quick dissemination to
where it is needed so that smarter and faster actions result,
according to Carman.

[15]www.hoovers.com and www.boeing.com, retrieved 11/01/02.

Defining Innovation
One way Boeing Rocketdyne defines innovation is as an
advancement in methodology, practice, process, or concept that
improves the product (i.e., hardware or service), cost, time-to-
market, and/or quality (e.g., performance, weight, functionality, and
life reliability). Another concept of innovation is that while developing
a product or process with Boeing Rocketdyne’s extended enterprise
partners, a natural progression of improvement occurs. If employees
just follow that line of improvement, a mutation of that progression
(or an innovation) may occur that will drastically change the rate of
change. The result is not a linear progression of product
development, but instead a series of continually increasing rates of
change on multiple activities that drive the overall technology
adoption rate.
KM and Innovation Best Practices
When asked to share the three things about the business that makes
Boeing Rocketdyne so successful at KM and innovation, Boeing
Rocketdyne representatives provided the following examples.

A best practice in industry is Boeing Rocketdyne’s separation of (and

tolerance for) its advanced development organization from its
production organization and its advanced technology organization
within advanced development. Although not everything is adopted, at
least some things do stick (e.g., the use of the NexPrise
collaboration tools). However, should its competition start heading in
this direction, Boeing Rocketdyne can quickly apply its experiences
in an opportunistic manner.

A best practice within the organization is Boeing Rocketdyne’s

extensive involvement in consortia and its openness and willingness
to participate in various kinds of interchanges (like benchmarking
and conferences) with many industrial, government, and academic
participants. This has provided great insight into what is being
developed elsewhere, how it is being applied, and what successes
are being achieved. Also, these activities have led Boeing
Rocketdyne to most of the software currently in use in its KM
activities. It has also introduced the organization to many new
practices, many of which have been adapted.

Also, Boeing Rocketdyne emphasizes additional education for its

entire work force and not just in areas where it applies to one’s job or
career. This best practice has enabled us to embed within the
required portion of training the KM and innovation stimuli, as well as
the benefits of those cultural shift requirements for success, like
“sharing is good.”
Culture and Communicating The Guiding
Principles, Objectives, and Behaviors
Boeing Rocketdyne explicitly communicates the importance of
innovation and knowledge sharing through its strategic objectives,
which are to execute a healthy core business, evolve strengths into
new products, and expand into new frontiers to expand the business
and increase profitability. Five other company objectives are specific
to KM:
1. to document and transmit explicit knowledge and to capture
tacit knowledge so it can be shared across the
organization;

2. to continuously improve methodologies and process or

business efficiencies through integrated product databases
and product data management that will increase the
probability of first-round success;

3. to decrease the amount of reinvention and duplication of

original work;

4. to foster communication, collaboration, and connectivity

within the organization in order to decrease the time-to-
market; and

5. to maintain the organization’s competitive advantage in

propulsion and power markets and open or gain entry to
new markets.

Regarding innovation, Boeing Rocketdyne primarily focuses on new

product technology development, process improvements, and
process integration to improve quality and lower costs, as well as
new process development in support of new program and customer
requirements.

The Role of Knowledge in Innovation

Boeing Rocketdyne considers itself a leading-edge technology
company that requires KM for new program development and new
processes to ensure its position as the supplier of choice.
Knowledge of the opportunities and the state-of-the-practice for its
products is a necessity for beneficial innovation; this applies primarily
to execute the aforementioned five objectives. To expand (one of the
objectives), Boeing Rocketdyne values its knowledge of
competencies. Therefore, innovation in both the product and process
worlds is vital to Boeing Rocketdyne, as well as critical to KM.
Although knowledge is also seen within the organization as a critical
component of its innovation strategy, the utility of innovation is
thoroughly examined to understand risks involved. The role of
innovation is to provide competitive discriminators for existing and
future company offerings.

The KM function focuses on utilizing knowledge to design, produce,

and sustain Boeing Rocketdyne’s products, as well as to promote
innovation where there is no existing knowledge. By reusing
knowledge, and not repeating or performing new effort, Boeing
Rocketdyne enables much more cost effective utility of people and
lower costs to be passed on to its customers. Knowledge in
innovation plays a key role in Boeing Rocketdyne’s strategic
business objectives. In the current business climate, it is critical to
develop innovative ideas to design and produce products. For
instance, until Boeing Rocketdyne’s simple, low-cost innovative
concepts engine (SLICE) team understood all the ramifications of
their decisions, they could not innovate in a meaningful way.

Each process organization is responsible for fostering and protecting

its expertise and generic product knowledge through intellectual
property protection (e.g., proprietary agreements and patent
applications). In the case of Boeing Rocketdyne’s Space Shuttle
Main Engine program, which is a mature program, limited innovation
to improve safety and operating margins of creating the engine and
its components is still possible. Also, Boeing Rocketdyne sees this
program as a provider of knowledge and expertise to many other
Canoga Park programs.

According to Carman, there is a connection between KM and

innovation in so far as knowledge advancements are a form of
innovation, and innovations form some of the best kinds of
knowledge, whether they are process advancements or product
advancements. Thus, KM and innovation are directly tied to one
another; and there is a direct cause and effect relationship between
the two. Within Canoga Park, this relationship is recognized
informally and is assumed to occur; but recognition of a formal
connection is weak.

The product teams are responsible for specific product knowledge.

Due to the change in personnel over the years, much of this
knowledge has been lost. So Boeing Rocketdyne initiated an
organized formal KM effort in 2000. Its efforts have consisted of tool
evaluation and some pilot projects to determine effective routes for
application of the KM process and technology. A preliminary KM
process has been developed, and Boeing Rocketdyne is promoting
this process and trying to get buy-in from various internal programs.

Culture, Innovation, and Knowledge Sharing

Boeing Rocketdyne’s culture welcomes innovation in the sense that

it recognizes that it is a necessity for future competitiveness.
Knowledge sharing has become more widespread in the recent past
than the culture of 30 years ago. However, externally, Boeing
Rocketdyne is limited in what it can share due to government
restrictions and export controls concerning sensitive data and
knowledge. Its challenge is to capture and retain that knowledge as
lessons learned. On specific product development teams, innovation
is seen as additional risk in the risk/benefit trade space, and risk is
weighed more heavily than benefit.
To better understand Boeing Rocketdyne with regard to innovation
and knowledge sharing, Carman advises looking at it as two
companies that share resources but act somewhat independently of
each other. It has the internal R&D and Advanced Propulsion
contract programs, which perform cutting-edge, high-risk, and highly
scientific work. Also, it has the production programs, which are highly
risk adverse.

It is this great divide in culture that is both a strength and a

weakness. Boeing Rocketdyne can do rapid prototyping and high-
risk developmental work and simultaneously perform very effective
process control, and understand highly complex systems and
processes like the Space Shuttle Main Engine program with its
99.999 percent reliability requirements. But the innovations that it
finds in discretionarily funded programs, because of the risk-adverse
nature of the production programs, can’t be utilized for most of its
ongoing production effort.

According to Carman, Canoga Park experiences two types of

failures: the repetition of past mistakes and the development of
innovative concepts outside of its experience base with inadequate
risk mitigation tasks at a process or component level.

Its Agile Infrastructure for Manufacturing Systems/SLICE program

was a key event that awakened the organization. Technically, it
highlighted how shared knowledge made radical innovation possible.
This virtual team program relied on information being placed in a
database that had historical persistence and a team-generated data
structure, which further created a joint exploration and experience
base for the team. It allowed team members to discover what each
participant contributed to the solution of the problem they were trying
to solve. The environment also made it possible to link each
contribution to customer requirements and helped the team define
and become aware of the interests of each participant.
Consequently, the team was able to anticipate the challenges a
proposed change could pose to ultimate product success.
Understanding not only what challenges each discipline was facing,
but also what the possible solutions were, and having it documented
meant the team had less rework and fewer misunderstandings.
Innovations on the people and contractual side fostered reliance on
experts, who were recognized as world class and substantial
contributors to the tacit knowledge base.

Translation of data into meaningful information is another problem,

because the team member giving it context can unintentionally alter
the meaning or importance ranking to other team members. But it
also allowed for the questioning of processes and conventional
wisdom (best practices) and the development of joint processes/
protocols across organizational boundaries without management
interference. Sharing this information at a peer-to-peer/peer-to-team
level created an environment that allowed for the teams to be self-
directed and for information to be shared immediately. Questions
could be asked and answered directly about any analysis or
requirements document. Metadata became very important to the
reuse of information, configuration management, and knowledge
creation. It also worked as a filter and recall mechanism.

Cultural Issues

Boeing Rocketdyne has been shrinking or static for 30 years, which

means that knowledge has become a commodity for individual
survival. Carman shared eight cultural issues related to KM and
innovation at Boeing Rocketdyne.
1. Engineers typically are creative and prefer to create new
designs rather than scaling proven design features. The
reuse of proven processes and design features are
encouraged where beneficial in order to focus effort on the
high payback, innovative aspects of a new product.

2. Each process was holding on to its discretionary resources.

Boeing Rocketdyne now has one enterprise level
 integrated plan with all resources assigned through one
council.

3. Management requires an assessment of the return on

investment or enterprise benefit, possibly in the form of
shareholder value or economic profit. Many people have a
narrow understanding of KM, and helping these people
gain a broader perspective of KM and how innovation fits in
is difficult. A broad perspective on KM does not always
provide immediate returns or quantitative benefits, because
it requires an educational step prior to evaluating the longer
term benefits in more subjective ways.

4. Boeing Rocketdyne’s culture is highly conservative and

risk-averse. The advanced technology team was given the
freedom to fail, which consequently allowed it to stretch
much farther than is tolerable within the mainline process.

5. The cultural background of fixing problems and rewarding

heroes has led to problems in recognizing and rewarding
the people whose work has very high initial success.
Reinforcement of the value of the process organization
independent of the product teams has been necessary to
compensate for this, whereas rewarding groups of people
for the overall success of the activity is necessary to reduce
the risk of fostering a hero culture.

6. Traditionally, the enterprise would stop at the company’s

gate. Its internal culture did not always recognize the value
of the knowledge present in suppliers’ and customers’
organizations, especially to the total product life cycle.
Educating the internal process organizations and inserting
new collaborative technologies into the culture addressed
this issue. Transitional changes are still taking place
because staff for some processes do not understand the
basis for change to take advantage of these new
technologies. Because this effort was enhanced by
 requests from Boeing Rocketdyne’s largest customer, it has
expanded, in particular, the organization’s manufacturing
capability and created a much more agile manufacturing
company. At the same time, it has created a division of the
work force. Some people understand the new paradigm
and are comfortable with it. Others see little or no benefit or
perceive the new paradigm as unnecessary risk.

7. Cultural issues on the individual product teams involved

diverse functional areas taking direction and leadership
from the lead of other functional areas. Team camaraderie
and team accountability have overcome this.

8. The territorial attitudes of functional areas were barriers.

Boeing Rocketdyne created individual product teams and a
product/process organizational structure to break down
those barriers.

Finally, some people are increasingly aware that programs serving to

recognize individual achievements, or place blame on individuals,
also serve to undermine cooperation. Instead, knowledge is treated
as power and hoarded. Likewise, as the organization has witnessed
a greater focus on individual performance, as opposed to a more
holistic perspective on system performance, it also has witnessed
situations where innovation is replaced by the need to “do it the way
we always have.” Boeing Rocketdyne’s hosts seminars create
awareness within the organization on the degree to which system
sub-optimization undermines its business processes and
management systems.

Although everyone embraces the need for innovation, cultural

support for it depends on which part of the organization you are
addressing. One side embraces change, innovation, and risk. The
other part is extremely risk-averse, adopts change slowly, and can
only deal with innovation in small, well-planned, and incremental
adoptions. Each side has a power base and is widely supported by
Boeing Rocketdyne’s major customers.
Leveraging the Culture to Support Knowledge Sharing
and Innovation

Boeing Rocketdyne leverages its culture in support of knowledge

sharing and innovation primarily through its selection of investments,
an intense desire to remain competitive, and a strong desire to fully
support its customers. Additionally, Boeing Rocketdyne has seen a
broadening implementation of collaboration tools in the production
programs’ culture. Most of these applications were developed as part
of the risk mitigation infrastructure needed to create manned, space
flight-rated equipment. However, they have also noticed the benefits
of sharing knowledge across the enterprise. Finally, communication
and sponsored activities such as Share Fairs, innovation workshops,
and lunchtime overviews have built interest in Boeing Rocketdyne’s
highly technical culture.

Boeing Rocketdyne creates and communicates the value proposition

for KM and innovation through Web-based communication, word of
mouth, e-mail announcements, and presentations at staff meetings.
Its emphasis in these communications is maintaining
competitiveness and job retention.

Boeing Rocketdyne’s organizational goals are similar to its technical

goals, but there are budget and schedule limitations. Often
technology is key to Boeing Rocketdyne’s success, because it
manufactures low-volume, highly technical products that require
robust and innovative technologies. If it doesn’t continue to improve
its products and create them at lower costs, Boeing Rocketdyne will
be out of business.

Communicating the Principles, Objectives, and Desired

Behaviors

Boeing Rocketdyne communicates its strategy for knowledge

creation and innovation through teaming, product/process structure,
and strategic planning integration efforts. The organization has an
annual discretionary resource plan to improve methodologies and
develop needed technologies and infrastructure tasks to share and
capture knowledge with input sought from all employees. Also, as
part of its KM team’s promotion of a knowledge-sharing culture
within existing classes, examples and benefits of KM concepts, KM
processes, and KM enablers and behaviors are presented to
employees to publicize the benefits of knowledge sharing. The in-
house educational system, based on introducing elements of holistic
thinking, parallel thinking, and cooperative thinking, serves the role
of another formal communication strategy. The KM team also
communicates the strategy through leadership and examples, formal
communication, and staff meetings.

Boeing Rocketdyne frequently utilizes meetings and “action boards”

in order to avoid undesirable process or product outcomes. In some
cases, it also incorporates KM into the procedures.

The other means of communication occur indirectly through

compensation. However, Boeing Rocketdyne currently does not
have a formal communication process that is specifically focused on
innovation. Previously, it had an Innovative Concepts Program,
which made available funds to pursue early stages of innovations,
but it recently fell out of favor due to tight budgets.

Role of Leadership in Communication

Within Boeing Rocketdyne’s process organizations, leadership holds

responsibility for coordinating and communicating the importance of
knowledge and knowledge sharing in innovation. This is
accomplished through formal internal communications backed with
examples, such as willingness to invest and explicit inclusion in
strategies. Boeing Rocketdyne’s leadership has an operating
organizational approach and supports and funds projects. All
elements of the enterprise—including engineering, operations,
quality, information technology, library services, and supplier
management—embrace and participate in the process integration
approach, whereby all initiatives are reviewed and managed to
achieve enterprise-level results.

Although Boeing Rocketdyne strives for innovation, it measures

short-term to medium-term business efficiency improvement rather
than at the long-term enterprise level. Also, leadership has the
responsibility of communicating the need for sharing knowledge and
actively participating in knowledge sharing.

External communication is a different matter. Without the explicit

protocols to share information across teams and disciplines, it would
be nonexistent in Boeing Rocketdyne’s culture. The restrictions
placed on the organization by International Traffic in Arms
Regulations and Export Administration Regulation (the commercial
version of International Traffic in Arms Regulations through the
Department of Commerce), as well as other regulations, create a
general culture of information hoarding. Employees do not share
information unless approval comes from a higher authority. The team
leaders usually have to publicly announce what protocols to use and
how specific data sets may or may not be used.

On the people side, communication vehicles such as formal

presentations, meetings, and discussions at staff meetings have
worked well for Boeing Rocketdyne. What has not worked is
Innovation Forums at which individuals present ideas to a group of
leading managers for consideration. And informal, top-down
communication does not seem to work well, either. On the electronic
side, several methods of communication have been tried depending
on the types and restrictions placed on the information being
exchanged. Fax, e-mail, voicemail, file transfer protocol, and shared
Web pages have all been used to communicate. NexPrise is the
method of choice for most outside communications. It is the
combination of ease of use, data in context, metadata generation
(reuse of data), search ability, and server-level and document-level
security.
To communicate KM principles beyond a single location, Boeing
Rocketdyne uses communications directly from top management
and group-level KM thrust activities, presentations at group-level
process council meetings, and meetings at all its sites, in addition to
fairs and cross-organization teams. Electronically, Boeing
Rocketdyne has adopted the same data infrastructure across several
sites or companies, which allows people from all organizations to
generate a basic, common knowledge base that is understood by all
team members and jointly managed. These efforts have been
successful in the technical, financial, business, leadership, and
management arenas.

Boeing Rocketdyne links KM-focused communications with other

organizational issues through staff meetings, top management e-
mail, newsletters, and other e-mail communication. By using
electronic databases in new ways, Boeing Rocketdyne has been
able to transfer process-specific information between partners and
suppliers and Canoga Park without disrupting each organization’s
business model. Because these links are two-way communication
channels, business and technical communication are enabled at the
same time. Boeing Rocketdyne has observed that its customers are
becoming more interested in this capability as well.

Organizational Barriers to Knowledge Sharing and

Innovation

Boeing Rocketdyne has addressed its organizational barriers to

knowledge sharing and innovation through an integrated strategic
planning process. Additionally, it is organized along a
product/process line, which has proven helpful in facilitating
knowledge sharing within specialties and, to a lesser extent, within
general skill areas. Process leaders provide an effective cross-
functional product focus that enables innovation based on total life
cycle processes. Also, process leaders provide cross- pollination
among products. Boeing Rocketdyne’s functional organization
structure previously promoted barriers, whereas territorial functional
attitudes impeded KM. The institution of a planned technology
programs directorate has also provided a means to share and
innovate. Within this directorate, Boeing Rocketdyne has a process
integration team that creates and fosters cross-functional visibility,
active promotion of sharing, and prioritization of investments.
Additionally, a senior management council integrates its
methodology, infrastructure tasks, and operating procedures across
all processes. The KM team organizes and sponsors the following
activities:

KM users group meeting—KM practitioners from across

Boeing Rocketdyne share information about their projects;

knowledge share fair—a forum where KM-related projects

demonstrate tools of both in-house projects and outside
vendors (The fair participants will be educated about all
these projects and their tools.); and

lunchtime technical symposium—Over a month period,

about 10 selected technical papers will be presented to
share knowledge with others.

Canoga Park has created communications networks that allow for

information to flow rapidly and organically across traditional cultural
and enterprise barriers, made team members aware of the barriers,
and helped with strategies for breaking through the barriers.
However, the overall culture is still in transition. Some silos still exist
because all of the processes have not been re-engineered to take
advantage of many existing technologies that change the roles of
organizations within the enterprise. According to Carman, there are
two facets of the problem of organizational barriers that have to be
simultaneously addressed to remove them from impeding knowledge
flow and innovation.
1. Processes must continually change and adapt to take
advantage of new technologies. Without this continual
change, Boeing Rocketdyne’s processes become cost
 prohibitive in comparison with competition that is more
willing take advantage of the new technologies. Its process
owners must be aware of the change around them and
embrace it. The related issue is the rate of change, which
today is very high.

2. Increased efficiency is not viewed as a method for

removing people from jobs, but as an opportunity to retrain
people for more challenging and difficult work that brings
higher value to the company.

Boeing Rocketdyne’s in-house education system serves to illuminate

the many organizational barriers to knowledge sharing and
innovation. The employees, customers, and suppliers who are
exposed to this thinking curriculum gain a deeper appreciation of the
sentiment of “one for all and all for one” and the consequence of
knowledge sharing and innovation in such an environment.

Boeing Rocketdyne tries to even out the culture across the

organization through its product/process approach and natural
rotation of personnel across product teams. Boeing Rocketdyne
recognizes diversity as a strength and works to develop not only
acceptance, but also need. This works well in overcoming barriers
and changing paradigms.

Its experiences with global differences are relatively new. Barriers

will have a personal (individual) component, a system component,
and a risk component. Each of these must be addressed separately
for each individual affected. The first principle is establishing a good
line of communication and building trust. The next step is to address
any technology issues that impede using whatever tools are needed
to communicate effectively from remote locations. The richer the
environment, the better the communications and more cost
effectively a person can work; but this also requires a higher initial
investment and training requirement. The biggest difference between
working virtually and at a central site is that an employee working
virtually must use more discipline to record what he or she is doing
and the decisions being made (making better use of KM tools). The
third part is making people comfortable with the change, which can
be accomplished through training; education; and prompt, courteous
support. Each cultural or global barrier must be approached on a
person-to- person level initially to ensure that a common
understanding is achieved. From these communications, everything
else will be derived.

Organizational Structure and Idea Generation

Boeing Rocketdyne is largely organized by product teams, and each

product team tends to adapt to a particular culture based on whether
they are executing, evolving, or expanding the business. “Executors”
are focused on getting the job done and don’t accept deviations from
the standard very easily. “Evolvers” are typically in a competitive
environment that is driven by meeting the minimum requirements
within cost and schedule. If innovation is absolutely required to get
the job done, it is accepted with a great deal of oversight and control.
“Expanders” are usually most tolerant of idea generation because
they are eager to find a market niche. Individual ideas are highly
encouraged by management and co-workers within this latter
environment.

Boeing Rocketdyne balances the need for productivity and efficiency

with time for innovation by trying to set time aside up-front in the
planning stages to accommodate innovation and efficiency
improvements. But for most the allocated time for innovation is
effectively nonexistent.

Boeing Rocketdyne has several rewards and recognition programs

for its staff for innovation. These include the Leading Edge award,
the Pillar award, and the Engineer of the Year award. There is also a
Technical Fellow program where consistent excellence is rewarded.
If the innovation is large enough, the individual could also benefit
from status changes within the organization.
Boeing Rocketdyne believes that an environment that encourages
innovation also improves employee job satisfaction. According to
Carman, as people have been encouraged to foster innovation, they
feel an increased ownership of projects and feel they have added
value to Boeing Rocketdyne’s products and processes. This shows
in the organization’s high retention rate of new employees and
through the attention that is provided to an individual from
management or other interested parties. An example is the recent
emphasis on disclosure of inventions that requires experts and
management to review disclosures, thus garnering the individual an
opportunity to expose others to his/her inventiveness.
Fostering Collaboration
Boeing Rocketdyne fosters collaboration through the organizational
environment of teaming. It has a very fluid team arrangement at the
lowest level that moves people from one team to another to increase
the flow of tacit information and best practices from program to
program. The next level is at the process or similar skill level, where
representatives can share knowledge. Also at the process level,
Boeing Rocketdyne has interdisciplinary teams such as its IT quality
assurance people teamed with its facilities organization. At the
executive staff level, representation at staff meetings from the
process organizations ensures context capture, as well as priority
alignment. Beyond that, tacit information is shared through the
Boeing Rocketdyne technical fellow community, but the effectiveness
of this varies.

In addition, Boeing Rocketdyne utilizes “gray beard” reviews, non-

advocate reviews, mentor programs, and lessons learned as part of
its knowledge management database. Initiatives across business
units provide a glimpse into other ways of doing business, as does a
close connection between designers and suppliers via collaboration
tools. The KM team is also piloting group mentoring, communities of
practice, video capture of interviews, and expert responses to
requests through automated systems. Finally, informal story telling is
a constant feature of several of Boeing Rocketdyne’s programs,
such as the space shuttle main engine program, which reinforces the
organization’s heritage in collaboration and exchange of tacit
knowledge. The role of the educational seminars has been to create
high levels of organizational consciousness on the need to
collaborate and share tacit knowledge. There are other formal efforts
that have been made to record and disseminate lessons learned
from one program to another, and there have been programs to
address topics of general interest in lunch or after-hours forums. The
leadership has endorsed all these activities.
These processes occur any time there is an opportunity for
knowledge sharing across enterprise boundaries. Boeing
Rocketdyne recognizes that for innovation to happen the
collaboration capabilities must be built into all the various support
activities. Traditionally this has occurred within the enterprise, but it
must now happen on a much wider scale, including the supply base.
Boeing Rocketdyne has collaborated using engineering, business,
manufacturing, and quality systems in this manner, and it is finding
new strategies for building tools that work in a diverse environments.
The key ways tacit knowledge is being formally captured is through
interviews of outgoing employees, attempts at reducing the paper
footprint, and organizing program-critical documents.

Fostering Collaboration on a Global Scale

At Boeing Rocketdyne, the business case for collaboration must

show benefits to all. Once identified, making the integrated process
affordable for Boeing Rocketdyne has meant adopting a virtual
collaboration infrastructure. The teams are multifunctional (including
customers and suppliers) and organized throughout the entire
organization to address total enterprise needs. Significant benefits
are accrued, and Boeing Rocketdyne educates its partners on those
benefits. On an international scale, Boeing Rocketdyne’s desire to
gain access to foreign markets is matched by the desires of its
foreign counterparts. Creating a collaboration portal that is free to its
suppliers, partners, and customers enables rapid adoption by all
external groups.

Getting people interested in change is easier when it comes at low

financial risk to the adopters. Boeing Rocketdyne believes the main
problem is that its partners have been bombarded with systems that
everyone wants them to use, and there is little or no overlap in the
competing systems. Many of the companies (suppliers/partners/
customers) understand how collaboration tools can help them
communicate better, and they also see the cost benefit of using
collaboration tools. The problem is also an issue with internal users
adapting to change when they really don’t want another new system.

Rewards and Recognition for Collaboration

Boeing Rocketdyne uses discretionary funding to pursue innovative

ideas, rewards and recognition programs that reward individual and
team accomplishments, public recognition at rewards banquets, and
other special events as well as patent disclosure and filing awards as
incentives for collaboration and knowledge sharing in the innovation
space. Peer recognition and Canoga Park’s Threshold Magazine
recognize innovations. The Boeing Rocketdyne technical fellow and
associate technical fellow programs also recognize technical
expertise and innovation. Additionally, Boeing Rocketdyne’s formal
training program promotes Deming’s ideas of systems thinking and
therefore provides an atmosphere where everyone helps each other
to be innovative. According to Carman, many leaders and other
senior personnel are open and accepting of innovation throughout
the organization. Boeing Rocketdyne’s earlier innovative concepts
program sponsored and funded early development of innovations
and entrepreneurial methodologies, but has recently succumbed to
budget constraints and staff availability.

Another emerging element is decentralized control, which fosters

collaboration and removes limits on flexibility and innovation. By
restricting the scope for innovation, removing autonomy from groups
by providing enterprise direction, and tightly controlling the budget
allocation processes, Boeing Rocketdyne tends to remove disruptive
elements in favor of more traditional evolution due to quantifiable
near-term benefits and lower risk.

There is a small but growing appreciation that motivating employees

to be innovative is often a counter-productive strategy. The growing
belief is that innovation follows naturally from employees’ intrinsic
motivation and that a reliance on external motivation can well serve
to stifle cooperation and, as a result, undermine thinking together,
learning together, and working together.

Collaboration Enhances Innovation

Teaming and collaboration at Boeing Rocketdyne have resulted in a

supportive environment that has enhanced innovation. Collaboration
allows for better, more innovative designs, a better understanding of
the manufacturing processes by the design team, and for process
integration to occur at an earlier phase of the product development
cycle. It also helps new teams to better understand what other teams
have explored in their creation of new product designs. Cross-
company teams provide diversity of culture, knowledge, tools, and
processes that provide a different outlook on problems, which results
in superior solutions. Collaboration creates less rework and allows
for better understanding of manufacturing processes. Shared
knowledge of needs, best practices, and the existing state of the art
provide a stimulus to spur innovation. Collaborative process
development programs, jointly funded by government and industry
team partners, have led to many breakthroughs at Boeing
Rocketdyne. According to Carman, the varying priorities, the
combined experience base, and talent pools and company focus on
different product lifecycle elements act just like a stock portfolio to
develop better solutions and lower risk.

However, outside of collaborative efforts on program or process

teams, no specific or formal collaborative efforts exist at Boeing
Rocketdyne. Therefore, Boeing Rocketdyne realizes mostly
evolutionary innovation. In fact, most process or product innovation
in Boeing Rocketdyne is so highly technical that it demands
collaboration. These circumstances enhance the sharing of
information and experiences. Examples include process organization
leadership meetings to identify and discuss technical issues, share
issues among recognized experts with Boeing Rocketdyne’s
technical fellowship program, and communicate the experiences of
recognized experts to design teams for consideration. Boeing
Rocketdyne’s RS-68 Main Combustion Chamber achieved high
quality at low cost because of extensive use of virtual project
collaboration during its design.

Challenges in Fostering Collaboration

Boeing Rocketdyne’s collaboration challenges include cross-

functional misunderstandings and a lack of appreciation for others’
functional obstacles. And a major problem for Boeing Rocketdyne is
getting the right experts together in terms of their availability and the
applicability of their expertise to the problem. Another is continued
resistance to change because it is still regarded by legacy system
owners as naked technology. Some process owners have not
changed processes to take advantage of the emerging technology,
but continue to develop their existing systems and have the same
types of functionality. Success stories, even in other domains, help to
erode the resistance.

Privacy issues have been a major concern of several collaboration

participants at Boeing Rocketdyne. Most of the concerns relate to
the hero mentality that is embedded in the culture. It is this fear of
failure, or public humiliation, that has caused the most problems in
the use of collaboration tools. Ownership of data and information
also has caused concerns in these environments. The issues are
usually individualistic (e.g., pride of authorship) and must be
addressed on a case-by-case basis.

Collaboration Tools

Boeing Rocketdyne has several tools in place to enhance the flow,

capture, and transfer of information and knowledge in support of
innovation. At the top level, this includes a push toward a common
product database; implementation of an electronic work instructions
process; and the development of a system to enhance flow, capture,
transfer, and sharing. Electronic team notebooks are used to capture
and share information. One of Boeing Rocketdyne’s multiple-year
discretionary resource infrastructure tasks is skill/knowledge
management, which establishes the process for electronically storing
information in KM databases and mining knowledge.

Boeing Rocketdyne also has a KM Web site. The KM team

developed the processes for knowledge mapping, capture, transfer,
and utilization. Some of the commercial tools employed include
“CoBrain” for capture and dissemination and “AskMe” for capturing
communications from experts. To date, the use of these has been ad
hoc.

Boeing Rocketdyne’s Technical Information Center maintains

lessons learned records. However, most of the transfer of
information is individually generated. Modeling and simulation tools
within the factory are also used to predict and capture the as-is
processes and enable integration of the animation into explicit online
work instructions. This information can be a great reference and train
replacement personnel rapidly, while also being available for reuse
after minor modifications on other programs.

Boeing Rocketdyne also uses several tools for creation of virtual

collaborative environments, along with more traditional tools such as
e-mail, voicemail, and traditional file transfer methodologies (i.e.,
shared drives and FTP sites). The need for secure transfer of
information has frequently driven the information and technology
innovations Boeing Rocketdyne uses.

Internal and External Collaboration

Internally, the teams will share knowledge. According to Carman,

however, a virtual team can actually be more efficient than a site-
based team, but the discipline to make it work is much different and
has to be closely adhered to. External collaboration is marked with a
great deal of caution at the beginning as team members get to know
each other; and the organizational routes are not available to them.
However, virtual collaboration eliminates many negatives of external
collaboration and requires the use of richer, more varied tools and
environments to be successful. Further, the energy it takes to create
and maintain the teaming arrangements is usually greater than for
an internal virtual collaboration. The external virtual team can also be
more efficient than a site-based team, but protocols, processes, data
structures, cultural issues, management goal alignment, company
goal alignment, and work ethic all have to be considered before an
external collaboration should be attempted. It is this planning step
and the understanding of what the collaboration is going to allow you
to do or not do with your present personnel that are the potential
benefits of external virtual collaboration. According to Carman, the
extension of a knowledge base to include that of other world-class
company partners is a great benefit if you fully allow them to
augment your knowledge and core competencies with their
knowledge and core competencies while aligning these capabilities
to a common objective. Proprietary information considerations and
the associated dealings with competitors as partners can block the
flow of certain sensitive knowledge, and U.S. government restrictions
and export controls can further limit distribution. Only in the case of
SLICE, with its special circumstances, was all business, technical,
financial, and management information free flowing in real time
among all parties, despite the large presence of external partners.

Communities of Practice and Collaboration

Boeing Rocketdyne Canoga Park has a large variety of communities

of practice. They vary in complexity of issues attacked and
methodology of communications used. Some communities just use
shared drives; others have generated Web sites or have e-mail
distribution lists. The more complex communities have turned to
complete virtual collaboration tool suites for communications and are
trying to generate KM as an end result of their efforts.

The aero-thermal engineering and mechanical engineering

communities are good examples. Both use collaborative
environments to create places to discuss and disseminate
information and capture decision rationales in support of their
customer base. In fact, they have been using the more complex
collaboration suites to gain more methods of communication. They
also use the collaboration tools to disseminate best practices. The
welding community and the welding inspection communities span
across Boeing but use less capable tools by relying more heavily on
NetMeeting and FTP sites.

When effective, Boeing Rocketdyne’s communities can combine the

expertise in a given skill area to further improve program
performance. For example, the welders and inspectors have drawn
on each other’s knowledge of welding across Boeing Rocketdyne to
become world-class welders, according the Boeing representatives.

Boeing Rocketdyne has developed a standard process for

organizing and managing communities of practice. The belief at
Boeing Rocketdyne is that communities are easy to create, yet have
many salient issues to overcome in terms of management of the
participants. Engaging people who are remotely associated with the
core community is difficult if they do not feel they have the same
sway as people present in the room with the community leaders.
Also, Boeing Rocketdyne has learned that keeping egos in check
when there is a room full of experts on a single subject is not easy.
Having an unbiased, neutral facilitator to extract the knowledge and
to spur innovation sometimes works well. Addressing remote team
members’ concerns also can be difficult unless the environment they
are communicating through has enough richness to mimic many of
the activities that would be taking place in a physical meeting.

Virtual Collaboration

Boeing Rocketdyne embraces virtual teams and associated tools

and frequently uses them for team communication. Boeing
Rocketdyne has used data sharing and rapid communication
software on every major program and many small developmental
programs since 1997. The belief is that any time a community has
members separated by more than 15 miles or located on two floors
of the same building, there could be a virtual collaboration
opportunity.

The primary internal personnel that need to use the system are
identified, along with all external companies and customers.
However, this process has been episodic, and there is no recognized
standard practice. No large-scale (i.e., more than 500 people) virtual
collaboration efforts have yet been conducted using these tools.

Boeing Rocketdyne engages individuals in virtual collaboration

through training or sometimes makes it a requirement for their
assignment on the team. However, because this methodology is
relatively new to most of Boeing Rocketdyne, curiosity about the
technology and process plays a role. A key to engagement is
empowering individuals to make change happen and not dictating
the how to use the system. It is the flexibility and ease of use that
really draws employees; any issue can be addressed without having
to have a system administrator referee the exchange. The self-
directed aspect, in which employees select the best method of
communicating what they need to say or illustrate, helps engage
individuals. In the case of global teams, it is necessary to fully train
everyone on the system’s restrictions and limitations.
Establishing Support Roles and Structures
Some form of KM has been in place at Boeing since the
organization’s inception, with the current formal process starting in
engineering in 1998 and becoming a separate budget element in
2000.

Boeing Rocketdyne’s KM initiative was driven both from the top

down and the bottom up. The introduction and rollout of the concept
of a “single source of product and process data” has provided a
major increase in interest and activity in knowledge management.

SLICE demonstrated that KM could be difficult. Although design

rationales were captured, reuse was not sufficiently emphasized to
be fully useful from a business prospective. In addition, the
successes in automating routine design processes in several
industries, including Boeing Commercial Aircraft, provided a
challenge to the organization. Several individuals with a passion for
KM started the formal KM initiative, and later the activity had top
management support. In manufacturing, it started with the process to
create process capability databases. The program management and
business administration areas respectively represent the newest and
oldest areas for KM.

The engineering operations process has taken up the formal

responsibility for KM. This KM team is chartered to extend KM,
formalize processes, incorporate new tools, and further integrate
activities across the enterprise. It is composed of people who are
considered among the best people in their fields from within the
division. However, Boeing Rocketdyne also uses the expertise of
other Boeing Rocketdyne business units to develop its KM
strategies. Additionally, each process director and process manager
is responsible for generic product and process-specific
methodologies, knowledge, and knowledge management. As a
specific example of such responsibility, much of the manufacturing
process KM responsibility resides with the manufacturing engineers.
The engineering-led initiative led to the formation of a formal Canoga
Park KM team. The team has taken KM to all facets of the business
through the exploration of available techniques and interaction with
the rest of Boeing. However, it should be noted that Boeing
emphasizes the product and process aspects of KM, with little
attention, in general, to the people side.

Conversely, the multiple-domain team encompasses nearly all

business and technical areas. The executive council that oversees
the effort provides coordination for all discretionary expenditures
and, more importantly, the consistency of these investments from a
KM viewpoint. The deputy general manager of Canoga Park is the
executive champion for the effort.

Discretionary investment (overhead) supports about half a dozen

full-time people, and each organization provides participants on a
part-time basis. There is also a $100,000 pilot project funded by the
space shuttle main engine organization. The funding for KM projects
comes from overhead budgets.

Innovation

Innovative development of disruptive technology is typically expected

of a small fraction of Boeing Rocketdyne’s work force, who then
spread the word about individual activities in the process and
product teams and gain acceptance of their fellow employees. More
evolutionary innovation comes from everywhere. As such, no single
individual or organization has the explicit charter for innovation at
Boeing Rocketdyne. However, there are teams that have a primary
interest in it such as the advanced technology programs organization
and the various engineering design teams. Business innovation and
the people side are not as well developed. Formal training and team
innovation activities are managed and funded under the formal KM
project.

Leadership, Organization, and Group Roles

The need for key leadership, organization, and group roles was
recognized back in the 1950s, but Boeing has fine-tuned its
approach since the 1990s. Historically, the organization began by
informally defining roles and responsibilities to allow maximum
flexibility of action. As such, this was an evolutionary realization and
process. The advanced technology programs organization, for
example, was formed in the early 1990s when Boeing realized that
business pursuit of base technology was scattered throughout the
engineering process and other programs. An organization was
formed as a nucleus of responsibility and management. Leadership
and roles for advanced technology programs were defined in terms
of the old organization’s inter- ests; it has since evolved into more of
one of the centers for innovation.

The formal KM project began in 2001 and changed to involve a more

structured team with broad participation in 2002. Kiho Sohn and
other interested Boeing Rocketdyne leaders representing enterprise
stovepipes lead this initiative.

Roles to Support Knowledge Sharing

Boeing Rocketdyne addresses KM through various integrated

initiatives. The centralized, formal, and engineering-led initiative is
still in an exploratory phase. The roles include the traditional ones
such as training and less traditional roles such as forming and
executing a coherent process to extract and transmit knowledge
focused on Boeing Rocketdyne’s product and process interests
and/or businesses.

Currently, KM practitioner responsibilities include formulating a

rational, affordable KM process and infrastructure to capture and use
knowledge to leverage Boeing Rocketdyne’s capabilities.

Subject matter expert roles include the documentation and

communication of KM and acting as a resource. Specifically, subject
matter experts:
 1. disseminate knowledge as process directors and process
leaders,

2. act as technical experts within each process as a resource

for questions and direction concerning their areas of
expertise,

3. represent the best of Boeing Rocketdyne technical

expertise as technical fellows,

4. sit on senior advisory boards to provide historical

perspectives and maintenance of up-to-date awareness of
external developments,

5. act as consultants for domain-specific knowledge and

awareness of external developments,

6. act as reviewers on proposals for business capture

knowledge, and

7. document and transmit knowledge.

Other responsibilities for KM support roles follow.

1. Manage the major process initiative to implement
skills/knowledge management tools and infrastructure
within, for example, production operations or supplier
management.

2. Define and assess tool requirements.

3. Pilot projects.

4. Coordinate activities and resources within the larger

internal and external KM community.

5. Act as stewards of knowledge.

6. Act as knowledge librarians.

 7. Act as team leaders, organizers, and system maintenance.

In its current formative phase, the KM group reports through

engineering and relies on other donated resources (e.g., IT, program
management, business administration, operations, and quality) as
support. The KM group works with other practitioners in Boeing
through the “phantom works” activities, as well as informal working
groups. The KM group supports the KM effort throughout the
organization, and its members are viewed as subject matter experts
for their areas.

Validating Knowledge

Boeing Rocketdyne does not have a formal knowledge verification or

validation process. Subject matter experts and management perform
peer reviews on explicit knowledge to arrive at a consensus of the
validity and/or quality of the data or knowledge. Tacit knowledge is
seen as soft information based on generally qualitative assessment
and is treated somewhat less reliably.

Boeing Rocketdyne normally has teams of industry experts or

subject matter experts or specific individuals responsible for the
validation of knowledge. However, no specific roles have been
assigned beyond those encountered in the normal conduct of
business. So far, only program-approved data has been processed
into its current knowledge database, which guarantees validation.

Integrating Customers, Vendors, and Partners

Boeing Rocketdyne integrates its customers, vendors, and/or

partners into its KM and innovation processes as part of its process
structure, where everyone (including customers and suppliers) gets
involved up-front in the process and remains involved throughout the
effort working as partners. Ad hoc approaches exist to ensure that
these elements are integrated into the program structures and
processes. Opportunities for beneficial inclusion of customers and
vendors into innovation tasks are explored in terms of their business
payoff. To enable these interactions, Boeing Rocketdyne uses virtual
collaboration methodologies and tools to collect and locate all the
above into a coherent group. As a result, employees gain better
insight into customer requirements and combined process
capabilities. To date, the formal KM team has not done much with
the information being generated in these virtual collaborations.

Boeing Rocketdyne does not have an explicit link between KM and

the main business of the organization. The assumption is that all
employees recognize the value of knowledge and will treat it as a
resource and competitive advantage. Thus, KM must be ingrained in
the organization’s process and product procedures and aligned with
its strategic objectives via the executive council.

Knowledge and Innovation in the R&D Function

Evolutionary innovation, rather than disruptive innovation, is more

the norm for Boeing Rocketdyne’s R&D function. When its innovative
concepts program was operative, disruptive innovation was more
prevalent. A further connection between the two is that the formal
KM team receives its funding from the R&D function.

Boeing Rocketdyne’s R&D process is changing to a road map-

centric process that is flowed down ultimately from product market
needs. Boeing Rocketdyne’s R&D management and budget is
centralized at the top level of the corporation and assigned to and
performed by the phantom works group, a highly distributed
organization. Business-specific R&D is managed, budgeted, and
performed at the business level and structured primarily by the
funding source (e.g., contracted R&D, company-sponsored R&D,
new business funds, and internal applications development).

The R&D rewards and recognition system is subsumed within the

Boeing program and does not differentiate R&D effort from any other
activity. Thus, R&D success is only one of the possible criteria for
recognition.
Advancing Learning and Training Functions
Boeing Rocketdyne uses learning and training functions in support of
knowledge sharing; there are very few instances where it has been
used to support innovation. This process starts with the individual
performance development process, which strives to jointly develop
individual improvement plans between employees and their
managers. Examples of on-the-job training and mentoring include
process knowledge and product knowledge classes, educational
seminars, Web-based training courses, mentor programs, and formal
system thinking classes. Formal training courses disseminate both
explicit and tacit knowledge. A minimum amount of training is
required for each employee annually, with these classes frequently
facilitating knowledge transfer among attendees.

Boeing Rocketdyne utilizes all the tools and functions discussed

here to facilitate the learning process. Mentoring is promoted to
transfer explicit knowledge and especially tacit knowledge. The in-
house classes from both Canoga Park and Boeing are offered by
subject matter experts, telecasts, and the mentoring program and
provide a quick learning curve for junior personnel in Boeing
Rocketdyne’s aerospace environment, which greatly relies on
acquired knowledge over long product life cycles. For the critical
function of program management, a senior process council has
created a Web-based best practices database and companion
formal training classes. Mentoring, both formal and informal, is used
for knowledge sharing and includes both on-the-job training and
story telling. In the case of virtual team collaborative training, Boeing
Rocketdyne disseminates best practices in each training session and
makes the sessions interactive so that answers are derived in a non-
threatening environment that show knowledge capture and
knowledge management in a situational context. The KM team
training helps to spread best practices across the various
organizations and/or teams that are adopting KM as a basis of doing
business.
Boeing Rocketdyne uses Web-based training for specialty classes,
both within the office environment and, more recently, the shop
environment. The formal KM team uses it for its training modules. E-
learning also allows for several of these courses to be taught online
and on demand in real time.

On-the-job training is used in an ad hoc manner; shop floor e-

learning is extending these ideas and taking advantage of on-
demand features. Instructors help disseminate best practices while
providing the basics. Because virtual collaboration trainers interact
with almost every program at Canoga Park, they tend to be a good
source for information about what has been tried to improve
performance of virtual teams, what worked, and what didn’t. The
formal KM team also funds innovation workshops, as discussed in
preceding sections.

Although mentoring is used, it is not widely supported by funding and

remains largely an ad hoc process. Within the current KM team
activities, group mentoring and individual mentoring programs are in
place.

After-Action Reviews are highly used by program management in the

context of contract performance or lessons learned sessions, but not
more generally. These activities are beginning to help identify the
best practices and other KM learning activities to be disseminated to
the next integrated product and process development team.

Recruiting and Training

Recruiting, a centralized function, conducts interviews at numerous

venues to identify employees who will thrive in a knowledge-sharing
environment. Additionally, young, motivated engineers and
managers frequently staff college fairs.

Boeing Rocketdyne uses the following tools for new hires:

buddy system,
 orientation,

continuous product/process class training opportunities, and

team interviews to examine best practices and lessons

learned.

The specific features of knowledge sharing or innovation for an

applicant are easily elicited in the interview process in terms of the
recruit’s interests. (According to Carman, most college recruits have
an unrealistic appreciation of the time devoted to innovation,
technology, and research in an engineering design environment.)
There is no difference between this recruiting strategy and the one
used for KM.

Boeing Rocketdyne does not have training focused or targeted on

creating and sharing knowledge for its employees. Nor does it have
an explicit or formal process for the company. However, Boeing
Rocketdyne customizes its training to an individual department and
offers peer training and on-the-job training. Boeing Rocketdyne
involves its new employees in teams, exposes them to KM, and
helps them understand how the new tools will help them perform
their jobs better. It also provides them with resources to answer
questions and help them surmount the learning curve on some of the
technologies they will be using, like the virtual collaboration tools.

Feedback Mechanism

Boeing Rocketdyne has a structured approach to capturing lessons

learned and feeding them back into training, which takes advantage
of corrective action boards, preventive action boards, and the natural
work teams that perform these functions. This is part of the overall
KM process.

Additionally, Boeing Rocketdyne has a series of best practices and

lessons learned Web sites assembled by its executive process
councils that employees can search for available information.
Canoga Park Web sites assembled by the KM team also enable the
capture of new lessons learned directly by employees. Boeing
Rocketdyne also has a set of ad hoc approaches in which lessons
learned and knowledge are being disseminated by movement of
personnel among teams, functional team meetings, dissemination of
best practices to newly forming teams, functional/organizational
communities, and within classes. All of these methods allow for the
information to be passed electronically; however, Boeing Rocketdyne
prefers doing this face to face, according to company
representatives.
Examining Indicators Of Success and
Change
Boeing Rocketdyne’s business is so critically tied to innovation that
its indicators are mostly normal business metrics. Within product
development, Boeing Rocketdyne generally focuses on development
cost and time-to-market, as well as first-run design success. For new
business, proposal capture rates, new orders, patent applications,
and the locations for Boeing chairman’s internal initiative awards are
formal indicators.

Sales for advanced technology development is used as a surrogate

measure for the rate of infusion or creation of innovation. Day-to-day
indicators are also derived from workshops, during which team
members generate a few hundred ideas for application to specific
problems. Within production, cost of quality is a performance
indicator that is used to measure innovation in manufacturing
techniques. For even more evolutionary innovation, Boeing
Rocketdyne tracks and monitors progress and/or results of its
internal application development projects through single-page
summary presentations that address current and future activity,
schedule, value added to date, expected value, concerns and
issues, patent disclosures, and proprietary rights. Disruptive
innovations have no internal key performance indicators. In the
specific case of SLICE, for example, global industry interest in the
processes used has proven to be a good indicator, but a similar
measure for the product would be less favorable at this time.

Time saved or cost of quality is assessed through historical analysis

and relational data using a Lean approach. A similar example of a
major metric for mistakes avoided is first-run success. In the near
future, Six Sigma methodologies will become more prominent, widely
used, and integrated with Lean, as it applies to all aspects of Boeing
Rocketdyne’s business.
Boeing Rocketdyne does not have a direct metric that is tied to
measuring increases in innovation. Rather, measurements vary and
are unique to the innovation. Sometimes technology contract
business volume is used as a surrogate.

Boeing Rocketdyne does not measure the success of KM separate

from conventional tracking or individually attribute success to
initiatives such as KM. The organization tracks and monitors
progress and/or results by the following measures:

process cycle time, quality (success), and cost as metrics;

product cost and cycle time;

cost of quality; and

the number of patent disclosures.

As such, Boeing Rocketdyne has no specific, independent measures

for success in any innovation, managing knowledge, or contribution
of knowledge to innovation. The formal KM team is presently
developing measurements and metrics to measure success for
future use.

Tying KM and Innovation to Performance Management

Systems

At Boeing Rocketdyne, KM is not tied explicitly to performance

assessment and development. Innovation is considered in many
cases as one indicator of the technical expertise of a practitioner.

To incorporate KM behaviors into employee performance plans,

Boeing Rocketdyne uses an individual performance development
process in which managers and staff have an opportunity to discuss
performance. During this process, both parties review the
performance strengths and areas for improvement and then decide
on a development plan that benefits that employee. If KM is
considered important to an employee’s assignment, it could be
communicated to the employee via the performance development
process.

Success Stories

Boeing Rocketdyne has several success stories where knowledge

creation and innovation resulted in a positive change or improved a
process or outcome.

New Flight RS-68 Rocket Engine for Delta IV Launch

Vehicle—In this program, the team decreased the
design/development cost by a factor of five and the cycle
time by a factor of two. It also decreased the unit cost by a
factor of five and decreased fail/fix cycles by a factor of 10.

New MB-XX engine—In partnership with Japanese

counterparts, work on this engine has led to a method to
access foreign markets and leverage Japanese skills and
technologies while also holding down development costs by
virtue of the extensive use of virtual collaboration skills,
practices, and technologies.

The SLICE program—An example of innovation not only to

Boeing Rocketdyne’s product and processes, but also to its
business model and approach to people and teams.

Simple,low-cost innovative concepts “turbopump”

programs—A four-part turbopump was built and tested that
replaced an earlier model that had 38 major parts with a
significant reduction in cost and development schedule.

New power cycle for rocket engines—In this case, the

innovators knew the pros and cons of traditional approaches
and wanted to combine the benefits and reduce the
drawbacks. The innovators were expert in the key elements
of the power cycle, so they had a great deal of tacit
 knowledge regarding the technical issues in design- ing and
developing engines. (The innovation in this instance was
simply to real- ize that a third, non-expendable fluid could be
added that mitigated the issues associated with multiple
fluids but essentially buffered the expendable fluids from
hazardous interactions and reduced power demands.) The
innovation was simple and robust. As a result, risks were
minimized, and the innovation was much more attractive to
the end users.

New method of gathering information from suppliers to

feed into internal systems—This is a model that can be
used for multiple types of information and data. It used
knowledge of several existing software packages, combined
in a way that created a smooth flow of information across the
supply chain, had minimal impact on any one company, and
actually increased efficiency by giving quick visibility to the
information in a context that all users understood. Boeing
Rocketdyne also made sure the system allowed for two-way
communications, and its use was well understood by the
customers.

Barriers to Success

During the site visit, Boeing Rocketdyne also shared examples of

what did not work in leveraging knowledge to foster communication
through innovation and knowledge sharing.

Cultural change is a large barrier to success. Changing culture

requires years of focused effort. The engineering environment at
Boeing Rocketdyne is risk-averse; usually, desperation is the
strongest motivator for innovation. For instance, on modern engine
programs, new materials provide distinct advantages but don’t have
the pedigree deemed necessary for their use. As a result, designs
are falling short of requirements.
Other impediments to success include creating process systems in
which the end-user community had no input into what was being
created. The builders did not have knowledge of the underlying
systems, and they could not request specific formats or information
to be shared. Also, in Boeing Rocketdyne’s current business
environment, employees are too busy to get involved on a routine
basis. Incorporation of product innovations and/or technology takes
10 to 15 years to establish sufficient data to reduce risk to
acceptable (but undefined) standards in the organization and
customer terms.

Another barrier is the inability to develop a business case to the

degree that would satisfy finance and accounting. In most cases,
significant innovation development does not proceed because
knowledge about future business/markets/competition is imperfect
and uncertain, and risks compared to nearer-term opportunities are
too high.

Finally, technologists who may be innovators have valuable and

“exotic” knowledge that allow them to synthesize new solutions.
However, they are also in conservative culture of Rocketdyne, so
they don’t see much value to them personally to make the
investment to implement and execute new technologies that help
them share their expertise. On the other side of the equation, the
technology does not serve people who wish to avoid risk and are
searching for bits and pieces of knowledge required for focused
innovation. The technology they typically seek merely gives them a
better view of issues and why it can’t be done rather than hints as to
how the innovation might be accomplished. SLICE is a great
example of a revolution that will have to wait its turn sometime in the
future.
Lessons Learned
Boeing Rocketdyne shared some lessons learned regarding using
knowledge sharing to drive innovation.

Focus on the process rather than tools, which is a

challenging, continual effort that must be constantly
promoted with periodic reviews necessary to ensure the
resources expended are achieving the desired results and
teaming with cross- functional collaboration being critical to
its success. Once either a process or tool has been
developed, pilot it on a small scale to prove it before it is
rolled out.

Be open and look outside for any enablers rather than trying
to develop your own. Frequently, this is a smarter
investment.

Don’t expect overnight paybacks. Once embedded, KM

requires changes, and change is difficult. Tacit knowledge is
probably the most important element, but the most difficult to
codify with getting the job done far outweighing any
leadership attention to whether KM or innovation is a
valuable part of the process.

Boeing Rocketdyne listed the following as things it would do

differently, given the opportunity.

Don’t push too many KM initiatives or innovations on to a

new product at one time.

Leverage KM earlier. KM needed formal attention decades

ago but was ignored because it was a field that did not seem
to provide quantifiable benefit for the investment required.
Boeing now knows that employees’ tacit knowledge is
priceless.
Rethink the incentives. Leadership has incentives based
upon short-term goals. Long-term incentives are tied to a
stock price that is not affected by decisions at the day-to-day
level of the organization. Innovation is perceived as longer-
term competitive positioning and, consequently, is not as
important. Carman admits that he doesn’t know what could
be done to change this aspect of human behavior other than
changing the incentives.

Restart the innovative concepts program. According to

Carman, this was a good program for unleashing the
creativity just beneath the surface that is just waiting for a
reason to show itself. It also served as a patent engine.
NASA and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory
The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, managed by the California Institute of
Technology, is NASA’s leading center for robotic exploration of the
solar system. Jet Propulsion Laboratory’s main 177-acre site is at
the foot of the San Gabriel Mountains near Pasadena, Calif.

Jet Propulsion Laboratory telescopes are observing distant galaxies

in the universe to study how this solar system was formed. It also
manages the worldwide Deep Space Network, which communicates
with spacecraft and conducts scientific investigations from its
complexes in California’s Mojave Desert near Goldstone; near
Madrid, Spain; and near Canberra, Australia. Jet Propulsion
Laboratory’s cameras and sensors are aboard satellites circling
Earth to study the ozone, oceans, and other Earth sciences. To
support continued exploration, Jet Propulsion Laboratory is making
advances in technology with new instruments and computer
programs to help spaceships travel further and telescopes see
farther.
Knowledge Management and Innovation
Practices
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) embraces knowledge
sharing in a way that preserves NASA’s innovative spirit, effectively
manages constraints, and focuses on the greater goals of the
agency while meeting tight mission deadlines. By living and
practicing the mantra to empower, encourage, and enlist, NASA’s
goal for using knowledge management to drive innovation is to
capture, organize, and manage its knowledge-sharing efforts.
Innovation and knowledge management are embedded in its culture.
Though knowledge management started as a grassroots movement,
its success has gained the attention of top management.
Culture and Communicating The Guiding
Principles, Objectives, and Behaviors
Knowledge Management Activities

Knowledge management activities at NASA provide the chance to

look across the organization, regardless of boundaries, and find
opportunities to make a difference. NASA’s knowledge management
goal is getting the right information to the right people at the right
time and helping people create knowledge and share and act upon
information in ways that will measurably improve the performance of
the organization and its partners. KM is critical to NASA in order to
document and integrate lessons learned to effectively manage the
risk involved in space exploration and human space flight. KM is also
critical because NASA’s work force is aging: one-third of the work
force is currently eligible for retirement. Furthermore, a key KM driver
comes directly from the President’s Management Agenda and states
that the administration will adopt information technology systems to
capture some of the knowledge and skills of retiring employees.

By the end of this decade, many of the most experienced

scientists and engineers at NASA and JPL are going to retire. If
we don’t have systems in place to retain more of what they
know, our institution is going to suffer.
—Jeanne Holm, chief knowledge architect for Jet Propulsion
Laboratory

Knowledge management systems are just one part of an effective

strategy that will help generate, capture, and disseminate knowledge
and information that is relevant to the organization’s mission.

Getting Started

In 1998 NASA reviewed 43 published case studies and visited six

organizations to understand what others were doing in KM. NASA
brought a standard set of questions and focused the interviews on
critical success factors and key reasons for success or failure. An
analysis of the research revealed that organization’s that succeeded
at KM were recognizing and rewarding people for sharing
knowledge, encouraging and supporting communities of practice
(capturing knowledge), and balancing long-term corporate needs
with short-term local needs (completing a task quickly). Not
surprisingly, culture was the most important factor, specifically
recognizing, rewarding, and acknowledging the importance of
knowledge sharing throughout the organization.

Figure 13 shows NASA’s critical success factors for KM success.

Knowledge management is central and core to the process and
plays an integral role in helping to define and guide culture, the IT
infrastructure, the knowledge architecture, and all supporting
services.

Figure 13: KM Critical Success Factors at NASA

NASA’s KM road map is the foundation and strategy for its

knowledge management activities. It provides the current and future
direction of NASA’s KM efforts and is divided into four phases, set
from 2003 to 2025. Phase one, sharing knowledge, enables the
sharing of essential knowledge so that employees may complete
agency tasks. Phase 2, integrating distributed knowledge, enables
seamless integration of systems throughout the world and with
robotic spacecraft. Phase 3, capturing knowledge, enables capture
of knowledge at the point of origin, human or robotic, without
invasive technology. Phase 4, modeling expert knowledge, enables
real-time capture of tacit knowledge from experts on Earth and in
permanent outposts elsewhere in the solar system. NASA’s four
phases and guiding principles follow.
1. Sharing knowledge (2003)

Adaptive knowledge infrastructure is in place.

Knowledge resources identified and shared

appropriately.

Timely knowledge gets to the right person to make

decisions.

Intelligent tools for authoring through archiving.

Cohesive knowledge development among NASA,

its partners, and customers.

2. Integrating distributed knowledge (2007)

Instrument design is partially automatic based on

knowledge repositories.

KM principals are part of the culture and

supported.

Remote data management allows spacecraft to

self-command.

3. Capturing knowledge (2010)

Knowledge gathered any place from hand-held

devices using standard formats on the
 interplanetary Internet.

Expert systems on spacecraft analyze and upload

data.

Autonomous agents operate across existing

sensor and telemetry products.

Industry and academia supply spacecraft parts

based on collaborative designs derived from
NASA’s knowledge system.

4. Modeling expert knowledge (2025)

Systems model experts’ patterns and behaviors to

gather knowledge implicitly.

Seamless knowledge exchange with robotic

explorers.

Planetary explorers contribute to their successor’s

design from experience and synthesis.

Knowledge systems collaborate with experts for

new research.

Rewards and Recognition

NASA rewards and recognizes its employees for innovation through

its invention and contribution board awards. Contributors to new
technology reports are eligible for several NASA invention and
contribution board awards. The following list is an example of these
rewards that are in place at Jet Propulsion Laboratory:

tech briefs ($350) for publication in Tech Brief magazine,

space act awards (up to $100,000),

 NASA patent awards ($500/$1000),

NASA software of the year (up to $100,000), and

software available for public release (a customer) awards

($500/$1000).

In the fiscal year 2002 there were 163 awards for publication in Tech
Brief magazine totaling $57,000, 33 awards for making software
available for public/ customer release totaling $16,500, and 63 space
act awards totaling $300,000.
Fostering Collaboration
The KM team, along with executive level champions, always looks
for opportunities to increase collaboration to facilitate knowledge
creation, sharing, and innovation. Fostering collaboration is vital to
the success of NASA’s knowledge sharing and innovation practices,
and NASA utilizes collaborative tools and workspaces to ensure the
ability to quickly share (and capture) key lessons across
geographically distributed teams.

An example of collaboration includes sponsorship of internal

workshops and symposia that feature face-to-face meetings for
teams that habitually work virtually. This gives employees a chance
to interact on a more personal level, as opposed to working only
through virtual meetings and e-mail. Other examples of collaboration
include hosting story telling sessions, lessons learned meetings,
instructional meetings, and other activities across projects and
centers. These collaboration opportunities exist specifically to bring
employees together to share information in an informal, face-to-face
environment. In addition, NASA has deployed collaboration
processes, services, and tools related to document management,
electronic archiving, product data management, enterprise portals,
taxonomies, metadata standards, experts’ directories, Q&A technical
databases, tacit knowledge elicitation processes, collaborative
workspaces, and e-learning. Employees are encouraged and
motivated to share information and, because of the complexity (both
technical and political) of NASA’s work, collaboration is required for
most teams and missions.

NASA Portal, Inside JPL

The Jet Propulsion Laboratory portal, called Inside JPL, is one of

many collaboration tools that the laboratory uses to provide
information and resources to its employees. The portal provides a
front door to NASA’s knowledge bases and is a key component to
linking the many KM systems and activities. NASA is using a set of
information portals to enhance both access to its rich electronic
resources, as well as to break down barriers to knowledge sharing
among teams and organizations. Launched in spring 2003, the
public-facing portal integrates the information from NASA’s 4 million
public Web pages and virtually organizes the diverse activities of the
agency into “one NASA.” These sites currently receive more than 2
billion hits each month from the public.

An internal portal, called Inside NASA, will meet a different set of

needs for NASA’s 140,000 team members to effectively collaborate
and exchange knowledge online. Launched January 2003, this portal
serves specific communities as well, such as scientists, managers,
and engineers.

Technical Questions Database

The technical questions database at NASA is used to help

employees quickly find answers in an electronic format. It features
the best questions asked at technical reviews and helps to create a
virtual presence when key people are not available. The database
includes more than 700 questions in 42 subject areas.

Engineers preparing for a key milestone review follow a standard

process that brings them to the technical questions database. By
entering a few parameters for their task, the system delivers a
checklist of questions they should be prepared to answer. This helps
all reviews run more smoothly and ensures that time is spent on
finding and solving mission unique issues rather than standard
concerns.

Lessons Learned System

The NASA lessons learned information system is an online,

automated database system designed to collect and make available
lessons learned from more than 40 years in the aeronautics and
space business. The system enables the knowledge gained from
past experience to be applied to current and future projects. Its intent
is to avoid the repetition of past failures and mishaps, as well as the
ability to share observations and best practices. Through this
resource, NASA seeks to incorporate safety, reliability,
maintainability, and quality into the design of flight and ground
support hardware, software, facilities, and procedures

Story Telling

The Jet Propulsion Laboratory library, archives, and records section

sponsors the monthly series, “JPL stories.” The concept is to provide
an informal and experiential environment for both the story teller and
the story listeners. This program operates under the belief that
stories are an effective way to communicate and understand an
organization’s culture and can help employees develop a sense of
organizational identity. Stories offer an approach different from the
more formal lectures, seminars, and town halls. They offer another
way to be a part of the discussion.

The program is kept as flexible as possible and includes a cross

section of story tellers form the Jet Propulsion Laboratory
community. Stories can take place in the past, present, or future;
they can be historical or fictional; and they can be light-hearted or
serious. Criteria for selecting story tellers can include
recommendations from other story tellers and story listeners, and
cold calls to well-known JPL employees (identified through their
reputation, their position, or news articles). Attention is made to
provide a mix of scientists, engineers, administrators, and managers.
The only criterion for story tellers is that their stories be personal.
The actual story told is entirely the decision of the story teller.

More formal story telling is supported through NASA’s Academy of

Program and Project Leadership. Project success stories highlight
dozens of anecdotes from renown leaders and is used as a way to
train potential leaders. The masters forums are face-to- face
knowledge-sharing meetings that bring together NASA’s best and
brightest to talk about their experiences.
Establishing Support Roles and Structures
Framework, Goals, and Strategy

NASA’s KM team is made up of 55 team members from across the

agency. NASA representatives feel that diversity is a major strength,
and team members may range from system architects to authors to
anthropologists. Goals of NASA’s KM team are to find and implement
good solutions, fill in gaps, and build an amalgamation of resources
to support its missions and research communities. Other goals are to
help infuse new ideas or needed technology and to leave or turn
over operations to appropriate content areas. KM supports and
enables other processes and initiatives by advocating best practices,
promoting good solutions, and building infrastructure and
applications to bridge distributed systems. The chief information
officer (CIO), chief engineer, and associate administrator for human
resources and education are the champions of NASA’s knowledge
management activities and charter the effort. The CIO helps to
embed the rules in the tools, the chief engineer drives the process
changes to put KM principles in the engineering processes, and the
administrator of human resources and education supports cultural
change through recognition and education. NASA actively shares
and benchmarks with other agencies, the national laboratory
community, and academia.

The key areas for NASA’s KM strategy are to:

sustain knowledge across missions and generations in order

to identify and capture existing information;

help people find, organize, and share the knowledge it

already has to efficiently manage knowledge resources; and

increase collaboration and facilitate knowledge creation and

sharing to develop techniques and tools to enable teams and
 communities to collaborate across the barriers of time and
space.

The framework for NASA’s KM system is comprised of people,

process, technology, and supporting activities. Figure 14 shows the
major tasks that guide NASA to share and use knowledge.

Figure 14: Framework for KM at NASA

NASA’s KM solutions help people find answers through services,

alliances, and systems. Its service offerings include document
management, information access, and search mechanisms.
Alliances include mentoring and collaboration. Systems include
standards, protocols, and metadata. Knowledge workers and
knowledge resources aid in generating the content needed for the
system to be successful.

Deploying Systems and Services

In 2002 NASA deployed systems and services that focused on three

objectives.
1. Ease access to information for the public, scientists, and
employees through the deployment of cross-cutting
information portals:
 by streamlining access to NASA’s 4 million Web
pages,

building the framework for distributed use and an

integrated publishing processes, and

creating taxonomies and metadata standards for

ease of interoperability.

2. Foster collaborative environments for missions by:

creating access to tools and training for virtual

teams and

piloting a quick-start team environment.

3. Capture design knowledge by:

creating a service and tools to capture in-process

design decisions for use on current and future
missions.

Strategic Intellectual Assets Management Office

The Jet Propulsion Laboratory strategic intellectual assets

management office is a strategic element of the office of the chief
technologist and is responsible for managing the laboratory’s
intellectual assets. The two offices that exist are technical evaluation
and technology transfer and awards.

Technology that is developed at Jet Propulsion Laboratory must be

reported to Caltech and NASA so that they can be patented as
appropriate. Technical evaluation exists to support and expedite this
process. Two technical evaluators process approximately 300 new
technology reports each year. About 100 of these are copyrighted
software programs, along with 92 provisional patents and 24 non-
provisional patents.
Technology transfer and awards is the office responsible for
contributing to the NASA Tech Brief magazine as part of its
technology dissemination activity. Here, new technology reports are
evaluated for publication and drafts and technical support packages
are processed. The technology transfer and awards office is also
responsible for licensing Jet Propulsion Laboratory developed
software to U.S. government agencies and universities.

Technology development at Jet Propulsion Laboratory is defined as

the formulation of a technical concept or application by transforming
the concept into hardware or software and taking it to the point
where it is proven to work in a controlled, relevant environment.

There are two primary types of intellectual property that are

developed at Jet Propulsion Laboratory: patents and copyrights.
Caltech has the right of first refusal for any invention developed at
Jet Propulsion Laboratory; NASA may then patent if Caltech
declines. In general, neither Caltech nor NASA patents software
because the copyright allows Caltech to license the software, and
NASA gets half of the royalties paid to Caltech for licensed software.
Advancing Learning and Training Functions
Jet Propulsion Laboratory leverages learning and training functions
including mentoring, coaching, and e-learning to support knowledge
sharing and innovation. In the areas of training and mentoring, the
Academy of Program and Project Leadership hosts classes, team-
targeted training, just-in-time online learning, and a community of
practice for project managers. NASA also encourages story telling
and provides forums for people to share stories and then publishes
the best. NASA is in the process of expanding e-leaning to bring
more diverse internal and external offerings to the work force. The
KM program at the Kennedy Space Center, for example, focuses its
training efforts entirely on the management of core competencies
and the ability to pass key skills in an on-the-job environment, as
well as capturing key knowledge in explicit forms. Jet Propulsion
Laboratory’s recruiting strategy emphasizes the opportunities for
innovation and sharing knowledge internally and externally.
Currently, a human resource recognition management study is
looking at changing incentives to encourage knowledge sharing.

Jet Propulsion Laboratory is constantly enhancing its ability to

capture knowledge by collecting best practices for managing risk,
encouraging sharing of successes and failures, and creating a virtual
presence of key staff at reviews through its technical questions
database. Finally, NASA is restructuring its Web environment for
efficiency and effective communication (through content
management, Web shops, and enabling applications).

Academy of Program and Project Leadership

The establishment of the Academy of Program and Project

Leadership in 1997 underscored the importance that NASA places
on project management excellence and development. Academy of
Program and Project Leadership provides professional development
to teams as well as individuals through performance support,
knowledge sharing, courses, career development, university
partnerships, and advanced technology tools. Over the past few
years, many of NASA’s more experienced practitioners have left,
while the number of projects has increased. Increasingly, a younger,
less experienced work force is in charge of complex projects. As a
result, there is a need for increased mentoring, support, and
development. The academy facilitates the transfer of this knowledge
and helps to develop future NASA project leaders and serving as a
source of innovation for project leadership.

The Academy’s five operational areas of expertise are:

1. project management development process,

2. training courses,

3. project team performance support,

4. online project management tools, and

5. benchmarking and research.

The emphasis NASA has demonstrated in these five areas

represents an organizational commitment to provide the project
management community with the best possible knowledge, services,
and tools. Through the use of these strategies and tools, project
management will continue to flourish and improve at NASA.

Expertise Location

Efforts are underway to integrate distributed directories of expertise

within the agency and with partners. Grown as local solutions to local
problems, the KM team is currently working to connect these islands
of information to allow a single place for people to ask questions and
find answers and experts.
Examining Indicators Of Success and
Change
Jet Propulsion Laboratory’s key performance indicators of innovation
include the number of new patents or copyrights, published papers,
new technology briefs, and successful transfer of technology into
industry. However, more important than these measures is the ability
to continue to do and go where no one has gone before. True
innovation at NASA is not measured in a tracking system, but by the
ability to infuse radically new technologies into missions to the outer
solar system, to enable astronauts to do more complex experiments
on the space station, and to develop the breakthrough technologies
that will help to protect and enjoy this planet. Innovation at NASA is
measured by the ability to fundamentally understand this world and
the heavens.

Key Implementation Successes

NASA notes many keys to success with KM implementation. First, it

is important to get executive and/or broad sponsorship to make it
easier to achieve cultural change, easier to deploy systems and
solutions, and easier to transition and infuse KM into day-to-day
processes and activities. Second, NASA advises to begin by
listening to customers. The first success gained should be the most
important thing to the customer. And while continually listening to
customers, think globally, act locally, and keep focused on long-term
objectives during day-to-day implementation. Third, become
completely integrated to the core business and avoid focusing solely
on creating efficiencies. Fourth, to avoid getting caught up in the
latest fad, make an implementation choice and follow through and
keep true to the vision in the face of adversity.
Lesson Learned
NASA representatives offered the following lessons learned.

Bring together team members from diverse backgrounds and

organizations to provide the infrastructure for KM, as well as
the technical teams for innovation.

Gather and track requirements to ensure solutions match

customers’ needs.

Develop solutions, services, and rewards that recognize

teams and people who share knowledge broadly and provide
the environment where innovation thrives.

Enlist, encourage, and empower.

Develop solutions, services, and rewards. Deliver specific

solutions to specific customers. Build KM into the way people
already do their jobs. Make services operational (including
funding and metrics), and reward knowledge sharing through
promotions, recognition, celebration, and time to learn and
share.

Keep alliances strong.

Balance long-term desires (capturing knowledge) with local

requirements (specific solutions to a problem)

Tailor KM solutions for each organization’s business and

culture.

Don’t try to solve the whole problem; just start somewhere

and solve part of the problem
Millennium Pharmaceuticals
Overview
Founded in 1993 and headquartered in Cambridge, Mass.,
Millennium Pharmaceuticals is a leading biopharmaceutical company
focused on the discovery and development of small molecules,
biotherapeutics, and predictive medicine products.

The unmasking of the genome has provided enormous opportunities

in drug discovery. Millennium is harnessing this knowledge by
focusing on three strategies: major focus on personalized medicine
and productivity, a growing and sustainable pipeline of breakthrough
products, and a unique approach to creating value for shareholders
through business leadership.

Millennium focuses on four major therapeutic areas: oncology,

metabolic diseases, cardiovascular conditions, and inflammation.
Prior to its recent purchase of COR, revenue was primarily from R&D
alliances with such pharmaceutical companies as Bayer and
American Home Products. Increasingly, Millennium is looking to
provide shareholder value through products on the market (e.g.,
INTEGRILIN® (eptifibatide) Injection peak sales are projected to
exceed $500 million) and a deep, sustainable pipeline. The company
hopes to shift medical care from addressing symptoms to tackling
the root causes of disease. Millennium is also striving to leverage
knowledge to create patient management services.

The pharmaceutical industry faces tall productivity challenges such

as reduced R&D productivity, reliance on blockbuster drugs, and
increased therapeutic competition. In short, it is becoming more
expensive to develop fewer products.

Millennium, like most pharmaceuticals, is in a constant race with

competition to be the first to market with new drug discoveries. For
Millennium to take a drug from biology through chemistry to
development takes an average of 14 years and costs $880 million.
Costs and competition will continue to increase as Millennium
incorporates new technologies for discovery. Planning for an
increased number of target markets, a higher percentage of
unprecedented targets, and new technologies will require significant
capital.
Knowledge Management and Innovation
Practices
Millennium’s approach and business model is firmly grounded in
knowledge management and innovation. Leveraging strengths, the
company’s approach calls for an integrated and comprehensive
industrialized platform with a focus on cost, quality, and cycle time.
Figure 15 details Millennium’s Gene to Patient (G2P) productivity
platform.

Figure 15: The Millennium G2P Productivity Platform

The integrated G2P productivity platform is fundamental to Millennium’s

ability to revolutionize the drug discovery process. This process starts
with a gene or target identification and integrates processes, tools,
technologies, and people that enable the discovery and development
process to become more efficient. This is achieved through large-scale
knowledge management efforts where information is continuously shared
up and down the process through feedback loops. Millennium takes this
information and focuses on the major bottlenecks in the process (e.g.,
target validation, preliminary clinical trials, and clinical development).
Through this process, Millennium has been able to target areas that are
responsible for almost 50 percent of drug development failures.

Millennium notes that the advantages of an integrated platform are more

than just a vision for the future, because productivity advancements are
already a reality. For example, the Bayer molecule ICAST went from
target identification to clinical candidate status in just 18 months,
compared to the industry standard of 32 months.

The Role of Knowledge, Informatics, and Technology

Millennium’s goal with regard to knowledge and innovation is to build the

best R&D information and knowledge platform in the industry, with a
specific focus on knowledge management, target validation,
“cheminformatics,” and drug development.

The focus of target validation is to make information available to select

the optimal set of targets from the genome for therapeutic intervention,
define and establish the cross-platform extensions required to support
personalized medicine, provide the foundation for Millennium’s biology
and disease knowledge bases, and enable the strategic experimentation
required to determine the breadth and the outcome of the systems
biology agenda.

The focus on cheminformatics is to inform the selection of the optimal set

of leads from compound libraries for therapeutic intervention; to provide a
cross- platform view of drug discovery, preliminary clinical trials, and
pharmaceutical sciences activities related to the screening and
optimization of compounds; enable the strategic experimentation
required to determine the breadth and delivery of computational
chemistry and compound library strategies; and provide the foundation
for disease and drug knowledge bases.

Out of target validation, cheminformatics, and drug development, drug

development is the most expensive. The focus is to make information
available to select compounds as development candidates; to develop
the evidence of product safety and efficacy to secure marketing
authorization in key markets; to enable the processes and relationships
required to develop drugs across key markets; and to provide the
foundation for disease, drug, and customer knowledge bases.

Architecture Framework
Millennium’s G2P platform enables creating and sustaining the most
critical knowledge bases, provides visibility to information across the
enterprise and markets, drives value creation from underlying information
assets, supports the flexibility required by the business model, and
enables Millennium to extend itself into the health care marketplace to be
a partner of choice. Millennium achieves this through an architecture
framework made up of information architecture, collaboration
architecture, and knowledge architecture.

Information architecture is the formal structure of information and the

technologies used to store and manipulate data. This includes Web
services and database and document architecture. Web services include
a next-generation approach to interoperability by allowing information
and computation to be invoked as services by name and description.
Database architecture includes a relational database management
system for high data and transaction volumes. The document
architecture includes specialized simple document types assembled into
multiple, compound documents within a repository.

Collaboration architecture is the set of tools and processes through

which people interact with information and with each other. This includes
portals; context- sensitive filtering; and people, processes, culture.
Portals include a secure workspace for sharing work in progress, as well
as a team-based view of internal and external information. Context-
sensitive filtering is the automated classification of internal/ external
information and allows people to see what is available and relevant.
People, process, and culture embed work flow and make knowledge
capture a byproduct of work. People, process, and culture shape the
values and incentives around sharing.

Knowledge architecture is the structure and modeling of knowledge

domains to build more powerful systems and includes ontologies such as
structured findings and “knowledge representation systems” or
simulation. Ontologies are a consistent semantic framework that reflects
the structure of a knowledge domain in terms of which information and
knowledge may be represented. Structured findings include capturing
scientist’s or clinician’s interpretations of data and representing findings
in terms of a consistent framework. Knowledge representation systems
or simulations are intelligent systems for creating, searching, and
computing across a knowledge base of structured findings.
Culture and Communicating The Guiding
Principles, Objectives, and Behaviors
Innovation is the lifeblood of the pharmaceutical industry, and
knowledge management and knowledge sharing help to drive
innovation. The idea is to give researchers, scientists, and all
personnel access to new data and be better able to see the link
between targets and the market.

Knowledge Management

The goal of knowledge management at Millennium is to “enable the

flow of information and knowledge across the company—aligning
technologies, processes, and incentives to create an environment in
which people have the information they need to make better, faster
decisions.” A key component of this goal is to understand and share
what is known.

For example, the KM organization is involved in projects that strive to

achieve better quality information concerning targets by creating
greater clinical relevance and higher success rates. It looks for
opportunities to facilitate more efficient collaboration in alliances and
between line functions with less downtime around key decisions and
faster pipeline progression. It also looks for better integration of
discovery, development, and commercial knowledge by better
mapping its sciences to unmet medical needs. The bottom-line result
is that information plus context equals actionable knowledge.

Knowledge Bases

The focus on knowledge management is central to Millennium’s

strategy, and the purpose of the KM group is to build and maintain a
knowledge management platform and to create a vision and plan for
developing Millennium’s most critical knowledge bases. Some of
these knowledge bases include: biological pathways; biomarkers
and their correlates; disease understanding and treatment; small
molecules; operations; and patients, providers, and payers.
Millennium builds competencies at the interface between people and
platform by defining views or “lenses,” improving the usability of
systems, driving changes in work practices and behavior, and
enabling the full lifecycle of Millennium-specific information content.

Millennium defines a knowledge base as all related, accumulated

knowledge and organizational experience, or the sum total of what is
available to the organization for decision making. Millennium feels
that its knowledge base currently exists in its people, systems, and
processes. Millennium admits that, like all companies, its knowledge
base has gaps, is fragmented in places, and could be more fully
leveraged.

From its existing knowledge, Millennium has built a unique way to

make the different knowledge bases cross functional, and has come
up with a guide and set of questions to help people narrow their
search for information. For example, personnel in biology might
consult the operations knowledge base to find out what therapeutic
areas have previously worked on a particular gene target.
Millennium’s commercial organization may consult the biology
knowledge base to find out if there are any recent articles written
about the properties of a new drug. And personnel in the drug group
might consult the disease knowledge base to find the trial results for
drugs similar to one currently under optimization. By looking at how
different groups will need to draw upon and contribute to each
knowledge base, Millennium is building a blueprint for knowledge
management development.

Figure 16 details five primary knowledge bases in the center ring

(customer, biology, drug, disease, and operations), with the most
highly correlated and corresponding business lines or functions
situated in the outside ring. Millennium notes that each knowledge
base has a natural constituency that is represented by the business
functions most closely aligned to their respective knowledge bases.
The thick, dividing lines indicate the information silos that naturally
develop and hamper cross-functional knowledge and information
flows. Millennium believes that addressing strategically important
cross-functional knowledge and information flows will enable more
effective decision making and increased productivity.

Figure 16: Millennium’s Knowledge Bases

Views

To further help Millennium organize its knowledge and data, it has

adopted the concept of views. A view is a construct that describes
what users would like to see on their desktops—a gateway to what is
available and relevant. When views are missing or incomplete,
people are unaware of available resources and often reinvent the
wheel or make decisions in absence of relevant and pertinent
information. Millennium believes that the right views help to reduce
the energy and time of contributing to (as well as accessing) the
knowledge bases.

According to Millennium, the composition of knowledge bases is

determined incidentally as a consequence of multiple groups
investing in technology, content, and processes. But Millennium
attempts to clearly define what goes into knowledge bases and what
lies behind the different views. What is the composition of
Millennium’s strategic knowledge bases? A knowledge base is a
construct that goes beyond database or document repository; rather,
it brings expertise, relationships, decision making, and history into
the picture as well.

Millennium is defining the cross-domain knowledge flows that will be

critical to its business strategy for the work force to use. Groups
access and contribute to knowledge bases in definable ways and,
together, define the flow of information and knowledge across the
company. Knowledge bases reflect the needs of the traditional
constituency, but do not typically meet the needs of other groups.
This is how and why silos are created. Millennium sees an
opportunity to develop knowledge bases that support cross-
functional access and contribution, particularly where knowledge
flows are seen as strategic.

Millennium has defined several organizational capabilities that its

knowledge base strategy requires.

Access policies and procedures—Have well-defined

policies and procedures for how people gain access to the
information that they need across business functions,
alliances, franchises, and with partners across the firewall.

Common frames of reference—Use agreed standards for

how Millennium names, references, and tags information so
that systems are interoperable and individuals can find what
they need across knowledge domains.

Work practices and behavior—Change the way work gets

done, including incentives for knowledge use, definition of
roles and processes for content management, and improved
user experience (e.g., usability, personalization, and training
or support).
 Governance processes—Coordinate and converge among
technology and content groups around a shared vision of
knowledge, information, and technology platform as reflected
in planning, investment decisions, and entering into
partnerships.

The KM group focuses its projects in ways that reflect its

competency-building mission. For example, Compass has increased
Millennium’s capability in content management. Its information
sharing solutions group increased Millennium’s capability in defining
and embedding scalable processes. And My Biology is a project
aimed at increasing Millennium scientists’ ability to exploit all
available information to build a picture of complex biological
mechanisms and enable more efficient information sharing within
alliances and key programs.
Fostering Collaboration
Compass

Early in 2001 the KM group at Millennium initiated a project to

generate a data storage catalog. The intent of the project was to
provide an inventory of Millennium’s information assets in order to
facilitate productivity improvements by making it easier for
employees to find, access, and use the information they needed
throughout the company. The result of the project was a system
named “Compass,” which is a Web-based application integrated into
Millennium’s corporate portal and intranet (MyMillennium) with a set
of processes by which content in the catalog is developed and
maintained.

The primary driver behind developing Compass was Millennium’s

need to know what information it has, where it is located, how it is
accessed, and who is responsible for it. In terms of value, having a
catalog of information resources readily available would reduce the
time people spend looking for information and reduce the time
people spend answering questions about resources they own or
maintain. In addition, developing an inventory of key information
resources was a prerequisite for enabling the broader knowledge
and information-sharing goals embodied in the knowledge base
strategy.

In regard to content, Compass is a catalog of existing internal

information. Each catalog entry describes an information resource in
a format similar to a library’s card catalog with a title, summary,
description, author (i.e., the person responsible for the information),
the location of the resource, access instructions, keywords,
categories, and related entries. Resources cataloged include
presentations, reports, processes and procedures, internal and
external Web sites, facilities, journals, and databases.
Employees can search for information resources using the intranet’s
built-in search mechanism. In addition, employees can browse the
catalog through three views: departmental, alphabetical, and subject
categories. Once an employee navigates to a catalog entry, access
to the information resource itself is frequently just a click away.
Additionally, the employee can readily contact the person
responsible for the resource by clicking on the author’s name that
displays the author’s telephone number, e-mail address, job title, and
office location. Finally, the employee can find similar resources by
clicking on a keyword or category, which displays a list of all catalog
entries that contains the keyword or category.

Compass catalog entries are written and maintained by entry authors

situated throughout the organization. The system allows all
employees to contribute, collaborate, and find information.
Contributors can submit, edit, renew, and delete their own
information by using a one-page form online. Each author submits
and edits entries using an online form. Compass allows employees
to contribute to the catalog easily.

In order to provide consistency to the quality of catalog entries,

Compass administrators review each submitted entry, editing it if
necessary, before approving its publication. In addition, Compass
administrators use alert and usage reporting capabilities built into the
system to maintain the catalog and identify areas to improve both the
breadth and depth of content in a way that is aligned with what
people need to find.

Millennium notes that it had many options for designing the technical
components of the solution. The KM group decided to build
Compass into the portal framework that the IT group was putting in
place to replace Millennium’s old intranet. The new portal was
branded as “MyMillennium.” From a system design standpoint, the
portal framework offered a platform that was simple, flexible, and
relatively easy to customize. In addition, the IT group’s portal project
and the KM group’s Compass project had similar goals to improve
Millennium’s ability to easily guide people to the information they
need.

Millennium’s content within Compass is organized into categories for

context and browsing, and all items may be either searched or
browsed. Analysis of searched and browsed content helps
Millennium to continually focus Compass. By counting hits, looking
for heavily searched content, and analyzing the gaps, Millennium is
better able to make missing or desired resources available. Since its
initial deployment, Compass continues to grow. In August 2002, 45
percent of Millennium’s departments have Compass entries, one out
of every six employees has contributed (17 percent of company)
content, and there is evidence of solid and consistent growth in the
number of entries and contributions—more than 500 entries from
May of 2001 to late 2002.

Millennium has learned its share of lessons from its work with
Compass and offers a few pros and cons. The pros are that
Compass:

provides context for information through various views

(department, projects, people, and expertise);

provides hands-on training for users through content

collection process;

provides an easy way for content owners to keep content up-

to-date by using an e-mail notification system;

any type of document, system, or process can be indexed;

and

can be customized to directly address Millennium’s

requirements.

The cons are that:

the context is buried deep in the application,

 Compass does not represent a scalable way to train,

Compass needs to allow content owners to define an

appropriate content expiration date,

the system is so abstract that many users don’t understand

its purpose or scope, and

the custom application requires somewhat expensive

maintenance.

Future plans include transitioning Compass into a commercial

content management system in order to reduce the technical
maintenance cost and better integrate Compass into the technical
architecture. Phase one of this transitions plan is to address
opportunities that the cons currently present while maintaining the
features of the system that work well. Secondary plans are to work
alongside IT to identify promising commercial systems and establish
a timeline for the transition.

Compass and Usability

In order to get feedback on the usability of Compass and to learn

usability guidelines and testing techniques from industry-leading
consulting groups, Millennium’s KM group conducted a usability
study with the help of an outside expert. The study findings
highlighted challenges in three major areas.
1. Employees could not easily understand what Compass was
if they did not already know about it. For example, people
did not know what the Compass tab was for, even when
they clicked it, and did not realize that Compass was an
appropriate vehicle for contributing information, through My
Millennium.

2. There were barriers to publishing information. Employees

didn’t want to try an unfamiliar tool without help from IT or a
 higher level of technical experience. It was found, however,
that once the employees were walked through the system,
they thought it was extremely valuable.

3. The final challenge was a design issue. The pages

contained too many non- functional icons and logos, the
branding was distracting, and each page was visually
dominated by links.

Based on the results of this study, a plan was put into place to revise
the Compass design and functionality to better serve all user needs.
Millennium’s KM group added new headings and fuller explanatory
text to help users better and more quickly understand Compass’s
functionality around searching and contributing content. It added a
single link to FAQ’s that were currently cluttering up the screen.
Extra logos were removed, and non-functional icons were turned into
links or removed. Millennium also took a closer look at reviving old
training programs and has planned for new training opportunities.

Implementation of these changes only took two and a half working

days. The design and review process took two full days of elapsed
time and a half-day of production time. The result was a significant
improvement with a cleaner, simpler look and feel.

Collaboration Support

Another objective of the KM group has been to create collaboration

spaces to promote information sharing and decision making within
alliances and key programs. For example, the KM group helped
establish “eRoom: as a collaboration tool for Millennium’s alliance
with Abbott. In late 2001, the Abbott/Millennium alliance selected
eRoom as their collaboration tool of choice by partly basing their
decision on Millennium’s experience with eRoom in the context of
their alliance with Aventis. The KM group worked with alliance
members to understand high-priority information-sharing needs of
the alliance, identify explicit collaboration objectives, and gain an
understanding of how the alliance operated to manage their project
portfolio. A survey in early 2002 found that eRoom was solidly
established as a collaboration tool for the Abbott/Millennium alliance
and increased the efficiency of joint research committee members,
provided a means for scientists to efficiently share information, and
provided a “filing cabinet” to archive key project documents.

In 2002 eRoom expanded to support internal teams. The KM group

worked to develop methods for characterizing a group’s collaboration
needs by designing a suitable eRoom environment to meet their
needs, planning the launch, and providing training. Very rapidly,
eRoom was successfully deployed to key groups such as senior
management teams, strategic groups, and project teams throughout
business operations, commercial, research, discovery, and
development.
Establishing Support Roles and Structures
Millennium’s KM group was formalized two years ago after an
intensive three- month design phase to define the needs, required
knowledge capabilities, and gaps. The KM group continually refines
its strategy to identify where the largest opportunities are to use KM
for change and productivity increases.

Millennium has a matrix organizational structure, by function and key

initiatives. The senior management team has responsibility for all
strategic initiatives, one of which is productivity. The KM initiative
reports into the productivity initiative via the chief knowledge officer.
There are approximately eight to twelve people staffing the core KM
team with six permanent employees. Millennium also uses
contractors and consultants to support the KM initiative.

Views

To further help Millennium organize its knowledge and data, it has

adopted the concept of views. A view is a construct that describes
what users see on their desktops—a gateway to what is available
and relevant. When views are missing or incomplete, people are
unaware of available resources, and often re-invent the wheel or
make decisions in absence of relevant and pertinent information.
Millennium believes that the right views help to reduce the energy
and time of contributing to (as well as accessing) the knowledge
bases.

In most pharmaceutical companies, the composition of knowledge

bases is |determined incidentally as a consequence of multiple
groups investing in technology, content, and processes. But,
Millennium goes to great strides to clearly define what goes into
knowledge bases and what lies behind the different views. What is
the composition of Millennium’s strategic knowledge bases? A
knowledge base is a construct that goes beyond database or
document repository; rather, it brings expertise, relationships,
decision making, and history into the picture as well.

Millennium is defining the cross-domain knowledge flows that will be

critical to its business strategy. Groups access and contribute to
knowledge bases in definable ways and, together, define the flow of
information and knowledge across the company. Knowledge bases
develop to reflect the needs of the traditional constituency, but don’t
typically meet the needs of other groups. This is how and why silos
are created. Millennium sees an opportunity to develop knowledge
bases that support cross- functional access and contribution,
particularly where knowledge flows are seen as strategic.

Millennium has defined the organizational and technical capabilities

that its knowledge base strategy requires.

Access policies and procedures—Well-defined policies

and procedures for how people gain access to the
information that they need across business functions,
alliances, franchises, and with partners across the firewall

Common frames of reference—Agreed standards for how

Millennium names, references, and tags information so that
systems are interoperable and individuals can find what they
need across knowledge domains

Work practices and behavior—Changes in the way work

gets done including incentives for knowledge re-use,
definition of roles and processes for content management,
and improved user experience (e.g. usability,
personalization, and training/support)

Governance processes—Coordination and convergence

among technology and content groups around a shared
vision of knowledge, information, and technology platform as
reflected in planning, investment decisions, and entering into
partnerships
Information Sharing Solutions Group

The goal of the information sharing solutions group is to deploy and

support Millennium’s collaboration tools and activities and
communicate the plan and capability across the organization. One
project undertaken by Millennium’s KM and IT groups, driven by the
success in establishing information-sharing tools, was an
examination of how group-specific Web sites using Millennium’s
preferred portal technology and collaboration tools were being
deployed and the subsequent derivation of a process that optimizes
the deployment process.

The goals of the project were to:

identify user needs and determine which available

collaboration tools most appropriately satisfy those needs,

determine the level of KM/IT consulting needed for the user

to be successful and consistent with available resources,

provide a reference library that supports the deployment

process,

develop a practitioner network comprised of experts who

share best practices, and

reduce the time needed to effectively deploy tools.

In moving forward with future deployments, the team wanted to

retain the strengths of the existing process, diminish weaknesses,
and build in information from customer needs assessments. A known
strength is a hands-on approach. Currently, the individual who has
initial contact with the user is involved with the deployment
throughout the process. This will continue to happen as the
information sharing solutions group moves forward. Weaknesses
include not having time to debrief with the customer and customers
not committed and not understanding of what it takes to deploy tools.
Customer needs include quicker turn around time, step-by-step
process descriptions, and a predictable time frame for deploying a
solution, and a clear expectation of their role.

The information sharing solutions group engages in a number of

other tasks. For example, it is charged with the training,
development, and delivery for all collaboration technologies. The
information sharing solutions group constructed the reference library
that holds the detailed steps on how to operate and navigate the
portal and eRooms, as well as providing links to collaboration
resources. The group also holds monthly meetings with a
representative from eRoom and a representative from the portal.
This meeting exists to creatively share new ideas and offload some
of the work from the KM and IT groups. The purpose is to provide an
open and informal atmosphere.

Building a Knowledge Base

The KM group focuses its projects in ways that reflect its

competency-building mission. Specific projects/processes are
created that enable Millennium scientists to exploit all available
information in order to build a picture of complex biological
mechanisms and enable more efficient information sharing within
alliances and key programs.

Each project’s workflow for contributing content is well defined and

includes three design components: content management,
organizational change, and technology. Content management roles
include executive sponsors, entry providers who describe the
content and keep it up-to-date; experts who recommend new entries;
and content coordinators who are accountable for the quality of
entries and for stewarding the entire process.

One such project is “MyBiology,” a database system that enables

scientists to capture, share, and reuse scientific findings. Millennium
seeks to lead the industry in its ability to leverage biological
knowledge for drug discovery and development and exploit all
available information to build a developing picture of complex
biological systems. In doing this, Millennium faces challenges
common to many pharmaceutical companies such as the explosion
of external information, limited visibility to other scientist’s findings,
and difficulty in pulling together information that is scattered across
multiple sources. MyBiology is a term that refers to a family of
projects that together help Millennium meet these challenges.

MyBiology reflects Millennium’s ambition to integrate at the

knowledge level. The goals of MyBiology are to capture findings and
interpretations, store them in a knowledge base, combine internal
and external findings, embed the use of knowledge bases into
scientific practice, and increase the scope of knowledge integration
over time.

The projects that make up MyBiology began with the scientific

findings capture process. Examples of projects include
“MyTargetValidation” life sciences. The technologies behind the
scene that drive these products are Millennium databases, Dossier
(a document repository), and Ingenuity (an external, third-party that
provides both a highly structured biological ontology suitable for
pharmaceutical use and a large source of scientific findings taken
from the public literature).

Scientific Findings Capture Process

The first phase of the scientific findings capture process is for a

knowledge intermediary to attend a scientific presentation.
Knowledge intermediaries attend about six to eight meetings per
week. The second phase is to receive or retrieve the presentation
from the presenting scientist. Millennium notes that there is solid
support, and turnaround is typically one to three days for this phase.
Phase 3 is to summarize the findings from the presentations into
Dossier, a document management system based upon
Documentum. The average time to complete this task is two hours,
and 205 total findings have resulted thus far. The fourth phase in the
scientific findings capture process is to contact the presenting
scientist for approval. This is where Millennium has identified a
potential bottleneck because it takes an average of six days for
scientists to respond (range of one day to 43 days). After the
presenting scientist agrees that the summary of their work is
accurate and complete, it is made available online. The process is
complete when the final encoded presentation is available in
Dossier.

To help foster the process, the scientific findings capture process

employs intermediaries to reduce the burden of knowledge sharing
for bench scientists. Knowledge intermediaries have integrated into
the R&D organization and regularly attend lab meetings in oncology,
proteomics, and target advancement (pilot). There are three full-time
knowledge intermediaries. The ratio to bench scientists number 200
to 1. They serve as a resource for scientists and direct them to
sources of information as well as provide assistance with Web sites,
IT solutions, and biology resources. Knowledge intermediaries
gather and summarize scientific findings by collecting PowerPoint
presentations, Excel spreadsheets, and other electronic files with
associated explanatory information about the experiment and its
conclusion. Knowledge intermediaries also create summary
information, confirm information accuracy, and publish information to
the document repository, Dossier (Figure 17).

Figure 17: Scientific Findings Capture Process

MyTargetValidation

A major new project in heavy use at Millennium is the

MyTargetValidation knowledge base, which serves as a portal to 20
different scientific data repositories. The knowledge base serves as
a central source for information about pharmaceutical targets in the
genome. Unlike Dossier, which is dependent on the knowledge
intermediaries to curate the information it contains by hand, the
knowledge base relies on the groups that maintain the data stores
that send information to the knowledge base to define what should
appear on the MyTargetValidation page. This allows
MyTargetValidation to remain very lightweight technologically and
provide broad access to valuable scientific information sources to
Millennium scientists.

Ingenuity

Ingenuity Systems Inc. partnered with Millennium in April of 2002

and brings expertise in knowledge representation systems including
knowledge bases, knowledge acquisition tools, query language, and
their own life sciences application. Ingenuity provides access to both
their technology and their content acquisition system, which involves
both manual and automated reviews of public literature papers and
entry of the findings into a database. There were other products
available to choose from, but ultimately, Millennium chose Ingenuity
based on its core technology, best in industry knowledge, and the
quantity of its literature-based findings. Its public literature content
contains 600,000 findings, including manual abstraction of 32
journals and more than 24,000 recent articles.

The proprietary findings from the Dossier knowledge repository

coupled with information and structured content from Ingenuity have
allowed Millennium some unique collaboration opportunities.
Millennium has combined these two databases to form one huge,
single knowledge base. This is beneficial because it allows
Millennium to perform computational analysis of integrated complex
biological knowledge for drug discovery. More importantly, it presents
Millennium scientists with integrated views of information derived
from disparate sources.
Examining Indicators Of Success and
Change
Millennium has many measures of innovation including the strength
and sustainability of the pipeline, the extent of commercialization of
targets, and revenue growth. Millennium also relies heavily on
productivity modeling to evaluate pipeline measures such as
probabilities of success, resources required, and the time to the next
stage. Millennium macro measures include analyzing stages,
success rate by stage, and stage drop out rate.

The KM group measures the acceptance and use of systems they

help deploy. In Compass, measures include analysis of usage
statistics, quality and growth of content, and the extent to which
searches are successful. For the information sharing solutions
group, measures include the efficiency of the revised deployment
process, the flexibility and robustness of the process over time, and
user participation in the practitioner network and reference library.
Surveys are also used to evaluate the effectiveness of deployed
solutions and to identify opportunities for improvement. Many
measures are used in the MyBiology effort including usage statistics
characterizing how scientists use MyTargetValidation and metrics for
the effort required to capture, approve, and publish scientific
findings.
Lessons Learned
A primary lesson is that addressing organizational issues is more
important—and more challenging—than putting technical solutions in
place. Early on in a project, employees ensure they understand the
problem they aim to solve and then get buy-in from the right people
to ensure sponsorship, commitment, and involvement. Millennium
advises when designing solutions, be cautious about over-
engineering. Stay aware of the readiness of a group to receive a new
solution (usually entailing a change in work practice and more work)
and employ a staged deployment approach that addresses end
users’ fundamental needs first. Also define a value proposition and
measurement strategy early. By defining a measurement strategy
and building it into project plans, project members are well
positioned to analyze usage statistics, conduct post-launch surveys,
and host end-user feedback sessions. These activities provide
tremendous help in embedding new solutions.

Next Steps

At a strategic level, the KM group is working on socializing the

knowledge base strategy within Millennium, with a focus on the
required organizational capabilities. With Compass, they plan to
provide specialized views of content (e.g., G2P platform
applications) to particular user groups and help the IT group
transition the content management capabilities to a commercial
system. Deployments of portal communities and eRooms are the
ongoing responsibility of the information sharing solutions group, and
this practice is well embedded in the IT organization.

Thus far in MyBiology, the knowledge intermediaries are employed in

multiple therapeutic areas, and according to Millennium, have been
well received overall. Millennium will continue to extend this
philosophy to other parts of the organization. Dossier entries are
visible to other scientists through MyTargetValidation, which is being
used by more than 100 research scientists on a regular basis.
Additional metrics are currently under development.
The World Bank
Overview
The World Bank offers loans, policy advice, and customized
assistance to more than 100 developing countries and countries in
transition. As developing countries play a greater role in the world
economy, the World Bank maximizes the benefits and cushions the
shocks to poorer countries. The World Bank uses its resources and
coordinates with other organizations to help developing countries
follow a path of stable, sustainable, and equitable growth. Its main
focus is on helping the poorest countries. Through interactions with
all of its clients, the World Bank emphasizes the need for:

investing in people, particularly through basic health care

and education;

protecting the environment;

supporting and encouraging private-sector development;

strengthening the ability of the governments to deliver quality

services efficiently and transparently; and

promoting reforms to create a stable macro-economic

environment conducive to investment and long-term
planning.

The World Bank is the largest provider of development assistance

and commits about $20 billion in new loans each year. The World
Bank also plays a vital role in coordinating with other organizations—
private, government, multilateral, and non-government—to ensure
that resources are used to their full effect in supporting a country’s
development agenda[16].

The World Bank has recently focused on using innovation and

knowledge as a currency in order to leverage the knowledge of
organizations and invest in technology to hasten the exchange of
knowledge. Major initiatives include helping people make decisions
that impact the economy, strengthening government, protecting the
environment, and supporting private business development.

[16]www.worldbank.org/ks, retrieved 10/01/02.

Defining Knowledge Management
At the World Bank, knowledge management (or knowledge sharing
as the World Bank prefers to call it) focuses on systematically
capturing and organizing the wealth of knowledge and experience
gained from staff, clients, and development partners; making this
knowledge readily accessible to a wide audience internally and
externally; and creating links between groups and communities
working on similar topics.

Knowledge sharing at the World Bank focuses on:

putting knowledge on par with money;

learning from clients and partners;

reinforcing continuous learning;

building client capacity and widening partnerships; and

promoting an open environment for effective knowledge

sharing.
Culture and Communicating The Guiding
Principles, Objectives, and Behaviors
Creating, sharing, and applying knowledge has always been an
important part of the World Bank’s programs to assist its member
countries to promote growth and reduce poverty. It is only since the
mid 1990s, however, that the World Bank has attempted to organize
its knowledge activities in a systematic way to maximize their
potential benefits. The World Bank’s knowledge strategy has three
focal points:
1. improving the World Bank’s operational quality and
effectiveness by enhancing its capacity;

2. enhancing the sharing of knowledge with its clients and

partners; and

3. enhancing client capacity to assess and make effective use

of knowledge, whatever the source.

The World Bank believes that business survival requires sharing

knowledge. Sharing knowledge will increase speed (faster cycle
times), improve the quality of service, increase innovation (testing
new approaches), and reduce costs (eliminate unnecessary
processes). Lending alone cannot reduce poverty. Knowledge
sharing brings new actors to the stage and provides global access to
development know-how, which could change the poverty equation.

The World Bank focuses on both product and process improvement

in its innovation efforts.

The World Bank’s knowledge management community has the

dedicated support of senior management. Through the
communication of KM strategies to World Bank employees, top
management acts as a change agent across the organization by
raising the awareness of knowledge sharing. Senior managers also
ensure the alignment of its strategy and KM programs.
Relationship of Knowledge in Innovation

In 1996 James Wolfensohn, president of the World Bank, announced

that in order to continue serving its mission and its customers, the
organization would, in effect, become a knowledge bank. This
announcement meant a profound change in the way the World Bank
conducted its business.

In 2002, after six years of developing a knowledge-sharing strategy,

the World Bank felt that it had firmly established its three pillars of
knowledge sharing. These three pillars represent a road map to
innovation for the World Bank.
1. First pillar: sharing knowledge within the World Bank—
Activities in this pillar include mentoring and coaching
programs, orientation, debriefings, thematic groups, and
advisory services.

2. Second pillar: sharing knowledge and learning with

clients—Components of this pillar include the Global
Development Learning Network, the Development
Gateway, indigenous knowledge, and the development
forum.

3. Third pillar: enhancing the capacity of clients—

Components of this pillar include learning and innovation
loans, the “development marketplace,” global knowledge
initiatives (i.e., global development network, Africa Virtual
University, “world links for development,” and “infoDev”),
the knowledge economy program, and the consultative
group on international agricultural research.

KM has stimulated innovation based on two developments at the

World Bank.
1. Upper management supported KM from an early stage
(1996), which led to greater resources for KM efforts and
great experimentation and risk taking.
 2. The absence of an organizational blueprint or strategy on
how to implement KM. The lack of fixed guidelines and
models, not surprisingly, contributed further to a more open
and flexible environment of experimentation, original
thinking, and innovative ideas.

Organizational Barriers to Knowledge Sharing and

Innovation

The barriers to knowledge sharing and innovation faced by the World

Bank are similar to the ones it faced when implementing knowledge
sharing several years ago. They include:

the World Bank’s large size and bureaucratic nature,

engaging and maintaining participation in the communities,

a relatively inflexible mindset of many staff,

continuing downsizing pressures, and

low trust levels among middle management.

The World Bank uses a variety of actions to address these

barriers.

Articulate and disseminate a clear knowledge strategy.

Get organized for knowledge management.

Provide support to communities of practice.

Provide resources for knowledge-sharing activities.

Change the personnel evaluation system.

Provide suitable technology.

Establish metrics to track what is happening.

Fostering Collaboration
Fostering collaboration and the exchange of tacit and explicit
knowledge and information to support innovation is an explicit
element in the World Bank’s knowledge cycle (Figure 18). The first
two pillars of its road map to innovation fit under the “sharing
knowledge” section of its knowledge cycle.

Figure 18: Scientific Findings Capture Process

The World Bank shares knowledge externally as well as internally

through a variety of activities and programs, such as mentoring and
coaching programs, orientation, debriefings, thematic groups,
advisory services, the Global Development Learning Network, the
Development Gateway, indigenous knowledge, and the
Development Forum.

Development Gateway[17]

The development gateway (the gateway) portal offers users access

to development information, resources, and tools and provides a
space to contribute knowledge and share experiences. The gateway
helps users navigate the growing amount of development
information available online and empowers virtual communities of
learning to address key development issues.

The gateway is one of the key programs of the Development

Gateway Foundation. The foundation is a nonprofit organization
based in Washington, D.C. A board of directors representing major
donors and partners from international organizations, public and
private sector, and civil society, as well as representatives of
developing countries governs it. The gateway serves the needs of
civil society, the public sector, the official donor community, the
private sector, and many others.

The gateway builds virtual communities, guided by development

experts, around major development topics. In addition,
“Development Focuses” address current and emerging issues in
development. Guides and advisers for a particular subject work with
their communities to highlight the most useful resources available
online. Registered users can submit content on a topic page and
receive e-mail alerts to let them know about new content available
on a specific topic or focus of their interest.

Accessible Information on Development Activities, or AIDA, one of

the Gateway’s services, is the largest online source of public
information on development activities in the world, with information
on more than 350,000 planned, current, and completed projects and
programs from more than 200 development agencies. AIDA allows
users to search activities by country, topic, source of funding, or
status.

The dgMarket is a global marketplace that provides information on

donor and government-funded development activities. Donors and
government agencies can directly post tender notices and other
procurement information on development projects. Companies can
set up a detailed profile to obtain automated e-mail alerts whenever
a tender notice that meets their specific business interest is
published. The full text of tender notices is available to paying
subscribers or can alternatively be purchased on a per-notice basis.

Country Gateways are locally owned and operated initiatives that

explore the use of information and communication technologies for
development in their countries. Country Gateway portals help create
and share local and global development knowledge, solutions, and
opportunities. By participating in and launching diverse online and
offline initiatives, Country Gateways enhance the transparency,
efficiency, dynamism, and sustainability of the development process
in their countries.

The gateway provides simple user interfaces for numerous functions:

sharing knowledge and discussing issues, registering and profiling
users, accessing projects and statistical databases, joining a topic
community, receiving e-mail notifications, searching, and branding
community workspaces.

Development Forum[18]

The development forum is an electronic venue for dialogue and

knowledge sharing among members of the World Bank’s
development community. Its focal point is an ongoing and expanding
series of electronic development dialogues on key issues and
challenges facing the development community and the world’s poor,
with a particular emphasis on learning from the experience of those
who face these challenges in their daily lives. These dialogues are
complemented by other features, including a speaker’s corner, that
provoke discussion and debate on development issues and
resources for those who wish to develop their own online dialogues
on development issues or learn about other ongoing dialogues.

The focal point of the forum is an ongoing series of development

dialogues, which vary in content, format, and duration. However,
they all share a common goal: to foster increased dialogue and
knowledge sharing on development issues, in an inclusive, collegial
atmosphere.

The forum’s organizers will work to mobilize active participation in

these dialogues by individuals and groups from developing
countries. A particular effort will be made to reach out to partner
institutions in developing countries—through training and research
institutions, think tanks, universities, non-governmental
organizations, and other development stakeholders—to encourage
them to foster participation in these dialogues and take an increasing
role in proposing, planning, and leading online discussions and
knowledge-sharing efforts on development issues of their own
choosing.

The World Bank hosts the forum. Development dialogues in the

forum are sponsored by the World Bank or by other organizations
around the world committed to sustainable development.

Global Development Learning Network

The mission of the Global Development Learning Network is to

improve development impact by using distance learning to train
development decision makers. The aim of the network is to use
information technologies to offer content from a wide range of
sources and reach a critical mass of participants to effect change.

The participants are usually a mix of decision makers in government,

nongovernmental organizations, academia, civil society, private
enterprise, and other development agencies. The network allows
participants to learn in their home environments by providing a cost-
effective alternative to face-to-face learning. It uses a mix of
technologies, including satellite communications, videoconferencing,
e-mail, Internet, CD-ROM, videos, and telephone conferencing.

The network is a growing partnership. It has 29 distance learning

centers and distance learning networks that work together to bring
development learning to approximately 20,000 participants each
year.

Thematic Groups

Thematic groups, also known as communities of practice, are groups

of people who are passionate about a common subject. They are
mostly front-line staff that are working in the regions and networks.
Leadership and membership in any thematic group is voluntary and
open to all staff. The groups also have external partners, and
knowledge sharing becomes seamless across the group through the
e-mail distribution lists and Web sites.

Thematic groups receive funding from their sector board(s) based on

work program agreements, which tie thematic group work to the
sector strategy. Thematic group products, services, and activities
include the production of knowledge collections (e.g., good practices
and sector statistics), dissemination and outreach to staff and
partners (e.g., brown bag lunches, clinics, workshops, study tours,
Web sites, and newsletters), and support to task teams, thus
enabling staff to apply and adapt the global knowledge to the local
situation. In addition, the groups raise additional funds for specific
work program activities.

The World Bank’s thematic groups provide some of its greatest

innovations in its products and services due to the fact that group
members work directly with partners and individuals in the regions to
solve development issues.

Rewards and Recognition

The World Bank uses formal and informal incentives to foster and
support knowledge sharing within its organization. One example of a
formal incentive is the President’s Award for Excellence program.
This program nominates two to three teams annually who have
excelled in knowledge sharing. Informally, project teams use After-
Action Reviews to debrief about the project, capture key lessons,
and share knowledge. Annual performance reviews now include
knowledge sharing and learning as one of four key behaviors for all
staff and managers. The innovation and development marketplaces
reward outstanding creativity (of both staff and other organizations)
in addressing poverty. The organization has learned the importance
of embedding the organizational culture with the idea that knowledge
and innovation is a competency and a highly desired activity.

To inspire innovation and a knowledge-sharing culture, the World

Bank holds programs such as knowledge fairs, which are learning
events to communicate about and encourage the spreading of
knowledge. One of these fairs is called the development marketplace
and provides a venue to seek new ways of addressing poverty. It
involves a competition open worldwide for any individual or
organization to develop new ways to fight poverty. In 2002 the
competition resulted in 2,400 entries with 204 finalists, and more
than 40 of the suggested programs were funded.

We take what we’ve learned about sharing knowledge for global

development and weave it back into the way the organization
functions.
—Lesley Shneier, senior knowledge and learning specialist, the
World Bank

Knowledge sharing is now widely perceived as an effective method

to achieve the World Bank’s mission of poverty reduction.

[17]www.worldbank.org/ks, retrieved 10/01/02.

[18]www.worldbank.org/ks, retrieved 10/01/02.

Establishing Support Roles and Structures
Knowledge sharing formally began in the World Bank when its
president announced in 1996 that it would become the knowledge
bank. At that time, the first thematic groups were created, and its
advisory services group was piloted. The following chronology
details the evolution of knowledge sharing at the World Bank:

1997—strategic compact or a plan for fundamental reform of

the World Bank in which many changes were introduced,
including an external client focus;

1998—knowledge-sharing attributes became part of the

overall performance evaluation;

1999—produced the World Development Report on

Knowledge for Development;

2000—launched the global distance learning network,

development gateway, and “Knowledge 4 Development;”

2001—strategic assessment of past four years that noted

that knowledge sharing moved to a more mainstream
activity; and

2002—the three pillars of knowledge sharing at the World

Bank were firmly established.

The World Bank moved very quickly into the equivalent of Stage 5 of
APQC’s Road Map to KM Results: Stages of Implementation™.
Some of the challenges it now faces as a consequence of its rapid
growth include mainstreaming best practices, ensuring
accountability, integrating KM and learning, scaling up efforts to
share knowledge externally, and managing innovation (creativity vs.
control).
The World Bank’s knowledge-sharing initiative resides in the World
Bank Institute. Knowledge sharing is placed strategically within the
World Bank to promote and help mainstream knowledge sharing and
learning as a collaborative, multidirectional, continuous, and active
process. The World Bank Institute is the nexus for learning and
knowledge sharing for its staff and clients.

Leadership and Designated Roles to Support Knowledge

Sharing

In general, knowledge sharing at the World Bank is decentralized

and does not have a central pool of resources. It is a matrix structure
with regions and networks (thematic in nature) that hold the
resources. Each vice president office has a person to coordinate KM
resources. This results in a decentralized system of knowledge
management. There is a small coordination unit, but much of the real
work takes place in the vice president offices. In the coordination unit
at World Bank Institute, there are about seven full-time staff. Staff in
networks and regions are also directly responsible for KM, although
it is difficult to estimate a number, but there are dozens of people
involved. At the World Bank there are roughly six regions and six
networks, and each of them has a knowledge coordinator and
advisory services (such as a help desk or call desk). There are 23
advisory services personnel, with usually two people providing each
service. And thematic group leaders or heads of communities of
practice spend about 10 percent to 25 percent of their time on
knowledge-sharing functions.

The World Bank has several KM champions within the organization,

but in terms of the overall responsibility, it falls with Bruno Laporte
(manager, knowledge and learning services, the World Bank
Institute), who is responsible for consolidating knowledge and
learning within the World Bank, and Karin Millett (director, global
knowledge and learning, the World Bank Institute), who is
responsible for leading World Bank Institute’s efforts in catalyzing the
knowledge bank. There are also a number of champions within each
vice president’s office and a community of people responsible for
knowledge sharing.

One of the most supportive champions of KM at the World Bank is its

president, Jim Wolfenson. He articulated the vision for a knowledge
bank in 1996; much of what KM has meant to the World Bank and its
work has originated from his original vision.

The World Bank follows a very decentralized process for the

allocation of resources to KM initiatives. All the vice presidents’
offices, in particular the networks, the thematic part of the World
Bank, allocate resources for KM. Sector boards (for each of the 16 to
17 sectors) allocate resources for KM to the various thematic groups
and advisory services. They are contracted to deliver a number of
outputs by the sector boards. The World Bank Institute does not
allocate funds to others; it has a budget to coordinate KM activities
across the organization.

Integration of Customers, Vendors, and Partners Into the

Knowledge-sharing Processes

The nature of the work performed by the World Bank demands the
involvement of its customers and partners. For example, a team in
the Africa Region, supported by the World Bank’s innovation
marketplace, launched the Indigenous Knowledge for Development
Initiative to integrate client knowledge into the development process.
The team leader for a Uganda agricultural project learned about the
initiative and partnered with the Uganda National Agricultural
Research Organization to redesign the project in ways that would
identify, document, validate, and eventually use indigenous
knowledge in agricultural research and extension. He also received
some funds from the initiative to identify potential uses of indigenous
knowledge in the project. This spurred interest among other civil
society groups in Uganda. Responding to a request from the Council
for Science and Technology, the initiative provided seed money to
establish a future indigenous knowledge center and prepare for a
national workshop to develop a road map for a national indigenous
knowledge strategy.
Advancing Learning and Training Functions
The World Bank Institute creates learning opportunities for countries,
World Bank staff and clients, and people committed to poverty
reduction and sustainable development. The Institute’s work
program includes training, policy consultations, and the creation and
support of knowledge networks related to international economic and
social development.

The World Bank Institute was created to help share the World Bank’s
expertise and that of its member countries with policymakers and
decision makers throughout the developing world. As the learning
arm of the World Bank, the World Bank Institute designs and delivers
courses and seminars aimed at reducing poverty and promoting
economic opportunity and growth. World Bank Institute technology
initiatives, like the Global Development Learning Network, link
training centers around the world and promote the exchange of
cutting-edge information. The institute also trains staff and clients
together, which allows the two groups to exchange information and
experience.

Using satellite technology and the Internet, as well as traditional

methods, the World Bank Institute delivered 587 training activities,
amounting to 210,000 training days, in the fiscal year that ended
June 30, 2001. Government officials, academics, business leaders,
journalists, and other interested parties in 149 countries took part in
courses on such issues as HIV/AIDS, pollution, corruption, pension
reform, and water use. WBI works with its partners at the World
Bank, multilateral organizations, and in the private sector to expand
services to meet increasing client demand.

Multiple-sector Team Learning

At the World Bank, there is a growing realization that development is

complex and interdependent, that participation of all sectors of
society is crucial to its success, that “one size does not fit all,” and
that learning-by-doing is key. Teams must work together and be
tightly connected together to achieve common goals and objectives.
They must also be agile, flexible, and include clients.

In 2000 the World Bank created a learning board to oversee all

learning at the World Bank and moved from a single sector to
multiple-sector team learning (MTL). The objectives of the multiple-
sector team learning program are to help World Bank teams build
both their own and client capacity to address key cross-sector
challenges, such as HIV/AIDS. The focus is to improve both team
accomplishment (immediate performance) and mastery
(performance over time). By helping each team to integrate learning
into its work, the program enables continuous improvement and
innovation. Supported by the learning board, the MTL program
started with 30 teams in all the regions in fiscal year 2002 and plans
to expand to 60 teams in fiscal year 2003.

MTL helps operational teams to fight poverty by transforming the

way they work and learn together. Knowledge, or sector, packs are
key to this effort. The knowledge packs provide users with quick
access to country-specific cases of indigenous/traditional practices,
in-country sources of knowledge, and World Bank-supported
projects related to indigenous knowledge issues. However,
knowledge packs alone are not enough. Teams also need process
and administrative knowledge, combined with behavioral skills, in
order to successfully achieve their goals.

Currently, the World Bank supports 60 multiple-sector teams. Each

team receives full support from team learning coaches. There are
about 30 coaches. The coaches work with team leaders to identify
team composition and develop a learning plan around team building
and knowledge gaps. The World Bank also provides online support
and help desk support to all operational teams. The World Bank
plans to expand to 1,000 teams in the near future.

Innovation in these teams occurs continuously from the formation of

the team onward. The teams focus on learning before, during, and
after projects and use project milestones and After-Action Reviews
to capture lessons and feed them back into the process (Figure 19).

Figure 19: Innovation in Teams

Innovation not only occurs within the teams, but also among them as
well. By providing the team with knowledge from the appropriate
thematic group(s) at they time they are formed, the teams have a
knowledge advantage going into their local projects. Using reflection
periods to gather insights, lessons learned, and to plan allows teams
to gather what they’ve learned during their projects and apply it
forward. And finally, the collective knowledge of the teams is
disseminated and utilized across the organization.

Preliminary feedback collected from the teams illustrates that:

teams are better integrated around sectors and demonstrate

improved communications;

teams have received technical support from other teams,

which provides what they might not have otherwise learned
about; and

the World Bank and clients have engaged in a program of

team development that has improved the overall
achievements of project goals.
Knowledge Intern Program

The knowledge intern program of the World Bank is offered to

undergraduate and graduate students of the member countries as an
opportunity to acquire practical, hands-on knowledge management
skills. Students must be enrolled in a full-time university program.
More than 100 knowledge interns are placed each year at various
units, thereby providing substantial assistance to staff in their
knowledge-sharing efforts.

The knowledge intern program is ongoing and year-round. Students

work together with staff in a mutual learning and knowledge-sharing
environment. Typically, students earn course credits for their work
and do not receive financial compensation.

A new knowledge intern recruiting system has been put in place that
allows students to create their personal profile, update them
whenever needed, follow up on their application status, and apply to
various employment programs without re-entering their information
multiple times.
Examining Indicators Of Success and
Change
The World Bank has monitored and evaluated the effectiveness of its
KM processes almost from the start in 1996. Inputs, activities,
outputs, and even outcomes have been measured. Measures
include:

monitoring and tracking outputs and utilization of resources,

database usage statistics, and the number of unique visitors
to the intranet portal site;

the number of innovation grants and loans and the tracking

of learning and tuition loans (each project is measured
separately and has its own set of indicators); and

an annual KM survey to understand how KM is contributing

to the success of the World Bank and its profitability.

The World Bank measures the inputs into KM, such as how much is
being spent and the number of programs. It also measures the
outputs, which involve the number of best practices, new tools,
knowledge nuggets, resources added, or processes put in place.
The third aspect of measurement is the utilization of knowledge
products and services, such as the number of unique visitors to a
Web site, the number of queries on an information and statistics
system, or the number of requests for services from advisory
services. The World Bank also conducts internal client surveys. Each
of the sector boards surveys the community concerning the
knowledge products that are most effective and how frequently they
are used, as well as the respondent’s contribution in the last year.

The World Bank also uses an overall staff survey for the
organization, which asks a range of questions, including some
focused on KM. These questions focus on “the extent to which
people feel they have access to knowledge to do their work” and “the
extent to which global knowledge is perceived to be available to
clients.” Additionally, a number of external surveys have been
conducted within the Africa region by going to main counterparts in
government project offices and asking about improvement in access
to the World Bank’s knowledge and how well the World Bank adapts
global knowledge to local conditions. People responded positively to
the first but less so to the second, which indicates that the World
Bank still has room to improve in knowledge adaptation.

The World Bank Institute has helped various units use surveys to
identify best practices in measuring output and impact and ways in
which to share that across the organization. The role of the World
Bank Institute is to help provide the tools, but the work is done within
the various units. There is an evaluation unit that traditionally
performs project evaluations at the World Bank.

Success Stories

Story telling has long been a vehicle for conveying success in the
World Bank, to the extent that is firmly embedded in its culture. The
following is a success story from the artisan community that
emphasizes collaboration and innovation.

The origin of this artisan community lays in a series of grassroots

management- training workshops conducted in West Africa, India,
and Peru since the 1990s. The focal point of the workshops was
indigenous women entrepreneurs who often hold the key to a unique
type of development: combining the pursuit of their economic
potential and choosing a sustainable livelihood that offers numerous
benefits to rural areas, including one often overlooked: preserving
their cultural heritage. The program emphasized enhancing skills,
according to the needs of participants, and greater community
participation in local economic development. Over time, a community
was formed, as workshop participants coalesced informally and as
artisan enterprise was recognized increasingly as a vehicle with
enormous potential to empower local communities.
According to the World Bank, the artisan community’s greatest
accomplishment has been the links—those between North and
South, between policy makers and grassroots activists, between
crafts people and buyers/donors—that it has established and
sustained. For example, the community serves as an ongoing forum
that addresses critical challenges faced by artisans all over the
world. These issues include raising investment, adapting products
for the global market, resolving tax issues, business planning,
utilizing new technologies, and finding a balance among economic
development, cultural heritage, and environmental concerns.

The community has also been a springboard and laboratory for

innovation. New project proposals have been developed based on
specific artisan needs and the ideas that have emerged from the
ongoing dialogue. For example, in January of 2002 the World Bank-
sponsored development marketplace awarded a grant for a project
to build creative communities in Mali, which is firmly rooted in the
artisan community. The grant will help replicate, on a broader scale,
the extremely inventive concept of using cultural artifacts (which are
eventually displayed in a village museum) as collateral for supplying
credit to local entrepreneurs.

The community also learned that learning is multidirectional; it

involves knowledge sharing among different groups and disciplines.
The focus is not simply on training or capacity building. Instead, the
artisan community emphasizes the value of learning from members
in developing countries. In fact, it has brought together artisans and
field workers to the World Bank in order to instruct development
professionals about the local impact of different development
strategies. This type of rich learning environment is also evident in
how innovative ideas from developing countries have provoked
thought on how they can be applied or replicated in developed
countries.

The artisan community has incorporated complementary activities

and tools to encourage and stimulate dialogue, innovation, and
learning. They include handmade development seminars, which are
attended by crafts people, financial supporters, museum
professionals, social scientists, and staff of nongovernmental
organizations and federal government agencies. Attendees meet
regularly to discuss innovation in culturally based enterprise
development in rural villages.

The community also uses online discussions to foster

communication and innovation. Electronic mailing lists have been an
essential tool in keeping the groups in the community connected and
promoting ongoing learning in face-to-face events. A network of
women entrepreneurs in rural Peru has even set up a mailing list to
discuss common issues.

Much of the artisan community’s success and innovative quality can

be attributed to its ongoing partnerships. As part of the institute’s
community empowerment and social inclusion learning program, it
represents one aspect of the World Bank’s new emphasis on
community-driven development and, therefore, has access to the
networks, resources, and ideas of a larger programmatic framework.
Just as importantly, the community works with artisan networks in
developing countries, such as the Self-Employed Women’s
Association in India; international craft organizations, such as the
World Crafts Council; and organizations in the North, such as the
Craft Organization Directors Association and the D.C.-based Crafts
Center in the United States. It is currently organizing a program on
“Building Creative Economies: The Arts, Entrepreneurship, and
Sustainable Development,” in partnership with a coalition of
agencies led by the U.S. National Endowment for the Arts, the
Appalachian Regional Commission, and the Kenan Institutes for the
Arts and Private Enterprise to explore promising practices in the use
of local cultural resources for poverty reduction and economic
development.

During the course of its development, the community has collected

several lessons learned.
Learning and applying knowledge—The overall learning
process within the community emphasizes practical
knowledge that is valuable to most members on a daily
basis.

Linking innovation to needs—Addressing a fundamental

development problem often requires using an imaginative
approach. The connection among rural development,
community empowerment, and culture and the arts was not
obvious to everyone in the development community, and has
made the community even stronger.

Diversity is critical in community building—A rigorous

understanding of the challenges faced by clients has been
achieved through ongoing dialogue among members
representing a broad and diverse range of disciplines and
perspectives.

Community building is an ongoing process and

challenge—Communities are difficult to establish and even
harder to sustain. Time, resources, active members,
coordination, and solid objectives are all crucial factors.
Lessons Learned
The World Bank shared seven lessons it has learned regarding
knowledge sharing since 1996.
1. Leadership—It is essential to have a top executive as a
sponsor for knowledge- sharing activities and programs.

2. Organization—Communities are the heart and soul of

knowledge sharing at the World Bank.

3. Culture—It is important to combine formal and informal

incentives for knowledge sharing.

4. Measurement—It is important to demonstrate the value of

knowledge sharing to the front lines to ensure the
continued participation in and success of those activities
and programs.

5. Communication—It should be relentless and inspiring and

stimulate both awareness and advocacy.

6. Management—Creativity is key to managing knowledge-

sharing programs and activities, but so is accountability.
Someone has to be responsible.

7. Innovation—Innovation is both an integral part of and

result of the knowledge- sharing journey. Without
innovation, programs stagnate and activities become
inactive.
Index
(Includes topics for sections and figures)

A-C
Access and Reuse of Knowledge, pages 62-63
Millennium, page 63
3M, pages 62-63
Access to Relevant Communities of Practice, pages 51-52
World Bank, pages 51-52
Advance Learning and Training Functions
Boeing, pages 136-138
NASA JPL, pages 150-151
3M, pages 112-113
World Bank, pages 176-178
After-Action Review Process, Figure 3, page 66
Aligning Messages, Rewards, and Recognition, pages 35-38
Aligning the Message, page 36
Boeing, page 36
Millennium, page 36
3M, page 36
World Bank, page 36
Aligning Rewards and Recognition, page 37
3M, page 37
World Bank, page 37
To Pay or Not to Pay?, pages 37-38
Boeing, page 38
NASA JPL, page 38
3M, pages 37-38
APQC’s Input-to-output Model, Figure 8, page 96
APQC’s KM Approaches and Sample Measurements, Figure 9,
page 97
APQC’s Process-level Knowledge Map, Figure 4, page 70
Boeing Canoga Park KM Team, Figure 6, page 88
Boeing Company, Rocketdyne Division
Advance Learning and Training Functions, pages 136-138
Feedback Mechanism, page 138
Recruiting and Training, pages 137-138
Aligning the Message, page 36
Culture and Communicating the Guiding Principles, Objectives,
and Behaviors, pages 119-127
Communicating the Principles, Objectives, and Desired Behaviors,
pages 123-124
Cultural Issues, pages 121-123
Culture, Innovation, and Knowledge Sharing, pages 120-121
Leveraging the Culture to Support Knowledge Sharing and
Innovation, page 123
Organizational Barriers to Knowledge Sharing and Innovation,
pages 125-126
Organizational Structure and Idea Generation, page 127
Role of Knowledge in Innovation, The, pages 119-120
Role of Leadership in Communication, pages 124-125
Defining Innovation, page 118
Defining Knowledge Management, pages 117-118
Establishing Support Roles and Structures, pages 133-136
Innovation, page 134
Integrating Customers, Vendors, and Partners, pages 135-136
Knowledge and Innovation in the R&D Function, page 136
Leadership, Organization, and Group Roles, page 134
Roles to Support Knowledge Sharing, pages 134-135
Validating Knowledge, page 135
Examining Indicators of Success and Change, pages 138-141
Barriers to Success, pages 140-141
Success Stories, page 140
Tying KM and Innovation to Performance Management Systems,
pages 139-140
Faster Solutions and Descisions, page 78
 Fostering Collaboration, pages 127-133
Challenges in Fostering Collaboration, page 130
Collaboration Enhances Innovation, pages 129-130
Collaboration Tools, pages 130-131
Communities of Practice and Collaboration, pages 131-132
Fostering Collaboration on a Global Scale, page 128
Internal and External Collaboration, page 131
Rewards and Recognition for Collaboration, page 129
Virtual Collaboration, pages 132-133
Highlighting Knowledge Sources and Resources, page 71
KM Budgets and Funding, pages 92-93
KM Core or Central Team, The, pages 87-88
KM and Innovation Best Practices, pages 118-119
KM Strategy at the Partner Organizations, page 84
Lessons Learned, pages 141-142
Lesson Learned Exercises, pages 67-68
Lower Cost, page 80
Lower Risk, pages 79-80
Partner Organizations and Innovation, page 20
Sharing Stories and Lessons Learned, page 72
Subject Matter Experts, page 89
Success Stories, page 95
Time for Reflection and Creativity, page 39
To Pay or Not to Pay?, page 38
Virtual Teams, pages 53-54
Collaboration, pages 60-62
NASA JPL, pages 60-61
World Bank, pages 61-62
Conclusion
Chapter 1, page 27
Chapter 2, page 41
Chapter 3, page 46
Chapter 4, page 55
Chapter 5, page 64
Chapter 6, page 73
 Chapter 7, page 81
Creating a Knowledge-sharing Culture, page 40
Creating and Managing Diverse Teams, pages 47-50
New-hire Orientation, pages 49-50
3M, page 50
Professional Development, page 49
NASA JPL, page 49
What the Individual Brings to the Team, pages 48-49
NASA JPL, page 48
World Bank, pages 48-49
Crossing Boundaries to Share Knowledge, pages 33-34
Millennium, page 33
NASA JPL, pages 33-34
3M, page 33
World Bank, page 34
Cultural Barriers, pages 31-32
Culture and Communicating the Guiding Principles, Objectives,
and Behaviors
Boeing, pages 119-127
Millennium, pages 156-158
NASA JPL, pages 143-146
3M, pages 101-104
World Bank, pages 169-170
Index

D-I
Defining Innovation and Knowledge, pages 19-20
Boeing, pages 117-118
3M, pages 100-101
World Bank, page 169
Demographics and Knowledge Loss, page 44
NASA JPL, page 44
Digenti Collaboration Model, Figure 12, page 110
Enabling Cross-functional Work, pages 52-55
Millennium, pages 52-53
Virtual Teams, pages 53-55
Boeing, pages 53-54
World Bank, pages 54-55
Establishing Support Roles and Structures
Boeing, pages 133-136
Millennium, pages 162-166
NASA JPL, pages 148-149
3M, pages 111-112
World Bank, pages 174-176
Examining Indicators of Success and Change
Boeing, pages 138-141
Millennium, page 166
NASA JPL, page 151
3M, pages 114-115
World Bank, pages 178-181
Expertise Location, pages 50-51
NASA JPL, page 51
3M, pages 50-51
Face-to-face Opportunities, pages 34-35
Millennium, pages 34-35
 NASA JPL, page 35
Formal KM Organizations, Figure 5, page 87
Fostering Collaboration
Boeing, pages 127-133
Millennium, pages 159-162
NASA JPL, pages 146-147
3M, pages 104-108
World Bank, pages 171-174
Framework for KM at NASA, Figure 14, page 148
Highlighting Knowledge Sources and Resources, pages 71-72
Boeing, page 71
NASA JPL, pages 71-72
World Bank, page 72
Information Technology, pages 93-94
Tools Used by Study Partners, pages 93-94
Innovation in Teams, World Bank, Figure 19, page 177
Index

K-L
KM and Innovation Best Practices
Boeing, pages 118-119
Millennium, pages 154-156
NASA JPL, page 143
3M, page 101
KM Budgets and Funding, pages 92-93
Boeing, pages 92-93
NASA JPL, page 93
3M, page 92
World Bank, page 93
KM Critical Success Factors at NASA, Figure 13, page 144
KM Measures, pages 94-97
APQC’s Input-to-output Model, pages 96-97
Success Stories, pages 95-96
Boeing, page 95
3M, page 95
World Bank, pages 95-96
KM-specific Structure and Roles, pages 85-92
Information Specialist, pages 90-92
NASA JPL, pages 91-92
3M, pages 90-91
KM Core or Central Team, The, pages 86-88
Boeing, pages 87-88
Millennium, page 88
3M, page 87
World Bank, page 88
Steering Committee or Leadership Team, page 86
3M, page 86
NASA JPL, page 86
Support Roles, page 89
 Subject Matter Experts, pages 89-90
Boeing, page 89
Millennium, pages 89-90
Knowledge Capture for Reuse, pages 65-70
After-Action Review, pages 66-67
Interviews and Videotaping, page 69
Knowledge Maps, pages 69-70
Lessons Learned Exercises, pages 67-68
Boeing, pages 67-68
NASA JPL, page 68
Knowledge-enabled Learning and Innovation (KeLI) Model,
Figure 1, page 25
Knowledge Management in Scientific and Technical Settings,
pages 22-24
Nature of the Knowledge and Innovation Being Managed, The,
page 23
Nature of the Professionals Doing the Work, The, pages 23-24
Knowledge Management Strategy, pages 82-85
Defining KM, pages 82-83
KM Strategy at the Partner Organizations, pages 83-85
Boeing, page 84
Millennium, page 84
NASA JPL, page 85
3M, page 83
World Bank, page 85
Learning and Training Function Used to Support Knowledge
Sharing and Innovation,
Figure 2, page 49
Lessons Learned
Boeing, pages 141-142
Millennium, page 167
NASA JPL, pages 151-152
3M, pages 115-116
 World Bank, page 181
Lessons Learned about KM Infrastructure, page 97
Index

M-N
Marketplace Pressures, page 45
Millennium, page 45
Measures of Success, pages 75-78
Millennium, page 76
3M, page 75
World Bank, pages 76-77
Success Stories, page 77
Improving Measurement for Innovation, pages 77-78
Mechanisms for Ideation, pages 45-46
3M, pages 45-46
Methodology, pages 12-13
Millennium G2P Productivity Platform, Figure 15, page 154
Millennium’s Knowledge Bases, Figure 16, page 157
Millennium Pharmaceuticals
Access and reuse of Knowledge, page 63
Aligning the Message, page 36
Crossing Boundaries to Share Knowledge, page 33
Culture and Communicating the Guiding Principles, Objectives,
and Behaviors, pages 156-158
Knowledge Bases, pages 156-157
Knowledge Management, page 156
Views, pages 157-158
Databases and Repositories, pages 59-60
Enabling Cross-functional Work, pages 52-53
Establishing Support Roles and Structures, pages 162-166
Building a Knowledge Base, page 164
Information Sharing Solutions Group, page 163
Ingenuity, page 166
MyTargetValidattion, pages 165-166
 Scientific Findings Capture Process, page 165
Views, pages 162-163
Examining Indicators of Success and Change, page 166
Face-to-face Opportunities, pages 34-35
Faster Solutions and Decisions, page 78
Fostering Collaboration, pages 158-162
Collaboration Support, pages 161-162
Compass, pages 158-160
Compass and usability, pages 160-161
KM Core or Central Team, The, page 88
KM Strategy at the Partner Organizations, page 84
Knowledge Management and Innovation Practices, pages 154-156
Architecture Framework, pages 155-156
Role of Knowledge, Informatics, and Technology, page 155
Lessons Learned, page 167
Next Steps, page 167
Marketplace Pressures, page 45
Measures of Success, page 76
Millennium G2P Productivity Platform, Figure 15, page 154
Millennium’s Knowledge Bases, Figure 16, page 157
Partner Organizations and Innovation, pages 20-21
Portal Technology, pages 57-58
Scientific Findings Capture Process, Figure 17, page 165
Subject Matter Experts, pages 89-90
Voice of the Customer, page 43
Model of Knowledge-enabled Learning and Innovation, pages
25-27
NASA and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Advance Learning and Training Functions, pages 150-151
Academy of Program and Project Leadership, pages 150-151
Expertise Location, page 151
Collaboration, pages 60-62
Crossing Boundaries to Share Knowledge, pages 33-34
Culture and Communicating the Guiding Principles, Objectives,
and Behaviors, pages 143-146
Getting Started, pages 144-145
Knowledge Management Activities, pages 143-144
Rewards and Recognition, pages 145-146
Databases and Repositories, page 60
Demographics and Knowledge Loss, page 44
Establishing Support Roles and Structures, pages 148-149
Deploying Systems and Services, page 149
Framework, Goals, and Strategy, page 148
Strategic Intellectual Assets Management Office, page 149
Examining Indicators of Success and Change, page 151
Key Implementation Successes, page 151
Expertise Location, page 51
Face-to-face Opportunities, page 35
Fostering Collaboration, pages 146-147
Lesson Learned System, page 147
NASA Portal, Inside JPL, page 146
Story Telling, page 147
Technical Questions Database, page 147
Framework for KM at NASA, Figure 14, page 148
Highlighting Knowledge Sources and Resources, pages 71-72
Information Specialist, pages 91-92
KM Budgets and Funding, page 93
KM Critical Success Factors at NASA, Figure 13, page 144
KM Strategy at the Partner Organizations, page 85
Knowledge Management and Innovation Practices, page 143
Lessons Learned, pages 151-152
Lessons Learned Exercises, page 68
Lower Risk, page 80
Partner Organizations and Innovation, page 21
Portal Technology, page 58
Professional Development, page 49
Sharing Stories and Lessons Learned, pages 72-73
Steering Committee or Leadership Team, page 86
Time for Reflection and Creativity, pages 39-40
To Pay or Not to Pay?, page 38
What the Individual Brings to the Team, page 48
Index

O-R
Orchestrated Serendipity, page 35
3M, page 35
Organization of the Report, pages 14-15
Outcomes and Benefits, pages 78-80
Faster Solutions and Decisions, pages 78-79
Boeing, page 78
Millennium, page 78
3M, page 78
World Bank, page 79
Lower Cost, page 80
Boeing, page 80
3M, page 80
Lower Risk, pages 79-80
Boeing, pages 79-80
NASA JPL, page 80
Partner Organizations, page 5
Partner Organizations and Innovation, pages 20-21
Boeing, page 20
Millennium, pages 20-21
NASA JPL, page 21
3M, page 20
World Bank, page 21
Participant Representation, pages 13-14
Role of Knowledge in Innovation, The, pages 21-22
Index

S-T
Scientific Findings Capture Process, Millennium, Figure17, page
165
Scientific Findings Capture Process, World Bank, Figure 18, page
171
Sharing Stories and Lessons Learned, pages 72-73
Boeing, page 72
NASA JPL, pages 72-73
3M, page 72
World Bank, page 73
Sponsor Organizations, page 4
Structural and Cultural Changes, pages 29-31
Managing Large Amounts of Technical Information, pages 29-31
Addressing Structural Barriers, page 31
Study Focus, pages 6-7
Study Findings, pages 7-11
Subject Matter Expertise, pages 15-16
Technology, pages 56-60
Content Management Systems, page 58
Databases and Repositories, pages 58-60
Millennium, pages 59-60
NASA JPL, page 60
3M, page 59
Portal Technology, pages 56-58
Millennium, pages 57-58
NASA JPL, page 58
3M, pages 56-57
3M
Access and Reuse of Knowledge, pages 62-63
Advancing Learning and Training Functions, pages 112-113
Recruiting Strategies, pages 112-113
Training for Sharing and Creating New Knowledge, page 113
Aligning the Message, page 36
Aligning Rewards and Recognition, page 37
Collaborative Environment, pages 110-111
Collaborative Model, pages 110-111
Crossing Boundaries to Share Knowledge, page 33
Culture and Communicating the Guiding Principles, Objectives,
and Behaviors, pages 101-104
Organizational Barriers, pages 104
Promoting Knowledge Creation and Innovation, pages 102-104
Rewards and Recognition for Innovation, page 104
Databases and Repositories, page 59
Defining Knowledge Management and Innovation, pages 100-101
Digenti Collaboration Model, Figure 12, page 110
Establishing Support Roles and Structures, pages 111-112
Knowledge Validation, page 112
Examining Indicators of Success and Change, pages 114-115
Measures, page 114
Surface Conditioning Division Supply Chain Model, pages 114-115
Expertise Location, pages 50-51
Faster Solutions and Decisions, page 78
Fostering Collaboration, pages 104-108
Idea Hopper, page 106
Library and Information Services, pages 107-108
Lotus Notes Databases, page 106
Recognition, pages 106-107
Six Sigma, page 107
Staff Rotation, page 106
Story Telling, page 107
Tech Forum, page 105
Technology Platforms, page 105
3M Education and Learning Site, page 106
Information Specialist, pages 90-91
KM Budgets and Funding, page 92
 KM Core or Central Team, The, page 87
KM and Innovation and Best Practices, page 101
KM Strategy at the Partner Organizations, page 83
Lessons Learned, pages 115-116
Leveraging External Knowledge, pages 109-110
Leveraging Internal Knowledge, pages 108-109
Lower Cost, page 80
Measures of Success, page 75
New-hire Orientation, page 50
Orchestrated Serendipity, page 35
Partner Organizations and Innovation, page 20
Portal Technology, pages 56-57
Sharing Stories and Lessons Learned, page 72
Steering Committee or Leadership Team, page 86
Success Stories, page 95
3M’s Business Model, Figure 10, page 101
3M’s Internal Technical Knowledge Repositories and Systems,
Figure 11, page 108
Time for Reflection and Creativity, page 39
To Pay or Not to Pay?, pages 37-38
Voice of the Customer, page 43
3M’s Business Model, Figure 10, page 101
3M’s Internal Technical Knowledge Repositories and Systems,
Figure 11, page 108
Time for Reflection and Creativity, pages 39-40
Boeing, page 39
NASA JPL, pages 39-40
3M, page 39
Tools to Create and Share Knowledge at Study Partners, Figure
7, page 94
Index

V-W
Voice of the Customer, pages 42-44
Millennium, page 43
3M, page 43
World Bank, pages 43-44
World Bank, The
Access to Relevant Communities of Practice, pages 51-52
Advancing Learning and Training Functions, pages 176-178
Knowledge Intern Program, page 178
Multiple-sector Team Learning, pages 176-178
Aligning the Message, page 36
Aligning Rewards and Recognition, page 37
Collaboration, pages 61-62
Crossing Boundaries to Share Knowledge, page 34
Culture and Communicating the Guiding Principles, Objectives,
and Behaviors, pages 169-170
Relationship of Knowledge in Innovation, pages 169-170
Organizational Barriers to Knowledge Sharing and Innovation,
page 170
Defining Knowledge Management, page 169
Enabling Cross-functional Work, Virtual Teams, pages 54-55
Establishing Support Roles and Structure, pages 174-176
Leadership and Designated Roles to Support Knowledge Sharing,
page 175
Integration of Customers, Vendors, and Partners Into the
Knowledge-sharing Processes, page 176
Examining Indicators of Success and Change, pages 178-181
Success Stories, pages 179-181
Faster Solutions and Decisions, page 79
Fostering Collaboration, pages 171-174
Development Forum, pages 172-173
Development Gateway, pages 171-172
Global Development Learning Network, page 173
Rewards and Recognition, pages 173-174
Thematic Groups, page 173
Highlighting Knowledge Sources and Resources, page 72
Innovation in Teams, Figure 19, page 177
KM Budgets and Funding, page 93
KM Measures, Success Stories, pages 95-96
KM Core or Central Team, The, page 88
Knowledge Management Strategy, page 85
Lessons Learned, page 181
List of Figures
Chapter 1: Knowledge-enabled Learning and
Innovation
Figure 1: Knowledge-enabled Learning and Innovation (KeLI)
Model
Chapter 4: Forming the Team
Figure 2: Learning and Training Functions Used to Support
Knowledge Sharing and Innovation
Chapter 6: Organizational Learning
Figure 3: After-Action Review Process An After-Action Review
(AAR) marries planning, action and reflection, building lessons
from the AAR into the planning process for the next round of
action.

Figure 4: APQC’s Process-level Knowledge Map

Chapter 8: Knowledge Management
Infrastructure
Figure 5: Formal KM Organization

Figure 6: Boeing Canoga Park KM Team

Figure 7: Tools to Create and Share Knowledge at Study partners

Figure 8: APQC’s Input-to-output Model

Figure 9: APQC’s KM Approaches and Sample Measurements

3M
Figure 10: 3M’s Business Model

Figure 11: 3M’s Internal Technical Knowledge Repositories and

Systems

Figure 12: Digenti Collaboration Model

NASA and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Figure 13: KM Critical Success Factors at NASA

Figure 14: Framework for KM at NASA

Millennium Pharmaceuticals
Figure 15: The Millennium G2P Productivity Platform

Figure 16: Millennium’s Knowledge Bases

Figure 17: Scientific Findings Capture Process

The World Bank
Figure 18: Scientific Findings Capture Process

Figure 19: Innovation in Teams